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JUST PLAIN FOLKS 


A STORF OF LOST OPPORTUNITIES’^ 



E. STILLMAN DOUBLEDAY 



BOSTON 

ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Copley Square 
1894 


Copyright, 1894, 
by 

E. STILLMAN DOUBLEDAY 

All rights reserved. 


Arena Press. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

A Lost Opportunity. A Star of Hope. Time Passing 5 

CHAPTER II. 

Off 20 

CHAPTER III. 

Summer Boarders 23 

CHAPTER IV. 

Old Bat and his Castle. “The Power to Take the Mutton.” 28 

CHAPTER V. 

Drifting. Lost his Way. Wanted, a Chance. “Help Wanted, . 
Males ” 35 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Tramp in quest of an Opportunity. Rejoice ! A Chance 

at Last. Failure. Fourteenth Street. Magdalen 43 

■ CHAPTER VII. 

A Midsummer Boarders’ First Night. Etta Foyle’s dream in 

Church 55 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Paul. A Character Study 64 

CHAPTER IX. 

. Butterflies. Two Storm-centers of a Tempest. 69 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

Character Studies. Some Queer Birds. A Taxidermist 78 

CHAPTER XI. 

Two Storm-centers of a Social Tempest. Some Threads of the 

Woof of our Story 89 

• CHAPTER XIL 

Partisans and Mugwumps 104 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A Cooper-Union Meeting 120 

CHAPTER XIV. 

North & Co. More Pay. Pestiferous Ifs 132 

CHAPTER XV. 

Accident, Intrigue and Crime 143 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A Holiday Visit to Sconset. Thetty and Maggie in New York. 

The Mysterious Woman in Fourteenth Street. Shadowed. 152 

CHAPTER XVH. 

John Hardhand’s Arrest 

CHAPTER XVHI. 

One to the Jail, the other to his Club 172 

CHAPTER XIX. 

In Disgrace. Business Failure. A Prayer for Life 180 

CHAPTER XX. 

Scales Falling from the Eyes of the Blind. Human Poverty 
and Nature’s Bounty ig^ 

CHAPTER XXL 

Again, the Search for Work. The Obstacle to Marriage. 


190 


CONTENTS. 


vii 

CHAPTER XXII. 

PAGE 

The Gentlemanly Usher. A Chapter on “Tips ” 198 

CPIAPTER XXIII. 

Again “ at Sea.” The only Port Open to the Man from NO- 
land 209 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The new Scarborough. Lights and Shadows. The Men who 

Work. The Men who Permit Men to Work 213 

- CHAPTER XXV. 

Pessimists and Optimists. Last Scenes in the Drama of 

Father Hardhand’s Life. An Unmortgaged Bit of the Earth. 218 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Master and Man. The Place where a Number will do as well as 
a Name 227 

CHAPTER XXVH. 

At Work in the Mills. Permission to Read. Eyes for the 

Blind 233 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Shadowed. “She.” The Girls in Scarborough “ ’Bus ” 243 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Shorty’s Arrest. Poverty, Crime and Charity. The “Name” 

Restored too Late 252 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The “ Wayback ” Mortgage. The Fixem Memoranda. A 

Daughter of the Vicks of New York 261 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

“ Booming ” Progress. The Science of Crowding. The Way 

of the World. Lord John 272 


CONTENTS, 


viii 


CHAPTER XXXIL 

PAGE 

Climax of Opolee’s Plot. Father and Son. The Hour of 


“ Her ” Triumph. “ Look on an Plonest Man ! 279 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Lessons Learned from Just Plain Folks. Lord John Awaken- 
ing. Old Bat Proves his Friendship 290 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Discussion between Workingmen. Producer and Pro- 299 
duct. Rights and Wrongs. Some Evil Consequences 


DEDICATION. 


With an earnest desire for our most kindly fraternity, 
I dedicate this book to “ My Neighbor ” — whether he 
be on “his own,'’ just over the fence, or whether “ his 
lot" be in the common highway with mine — where 
we “ move on " together. 

I am not a dumb animal ; I want to talk. I wish 
that my neighbor would heartily shake my hand and 
speak to me. But “we have not been introduced to 
each other," and society says we must wait for that 
formality. Singularly enough, we must remain 
strangers, because some third person singular has 
not said to him and to me, “ My dear neighbor, this is 
your dear neighbor." How absurd ! We have been 
meeting and passing all these years, and looking into 
each other’s faces curiously. I have “wondered" 
what I could do for him ; still more have I wondered 
what he could do for me. I need to know him better. 
Both of us know that God is “our Father," and that 
the earth is our mother ; yet we wait for Society to 
introduce us — brothers. 

To my brother or sister — my neighbor — who Society 
says must remain a stranger to me, but whom I am 
commanded to love, I may speak from the leaves of a 
book. 

I have a story to tell, of some plain folks, some 
common lives, with which we cannot be too well 


2 


DEDICA TJON. 


acquainted. The knowledge of such lives may help 
my neighbor, and may incline him to help make 
their lives, all lives, happier and better. 

I dedicate this story of common people to my neigh- 
bor in Australia or in the planet Mars — if we can find 
him there and talk with him ; to my neighbor at the 
machine, in the garret, in the slums, or in the brothel 
— where society has put her ; in the cell, the cabin or 
the castle — where we have put him — my neighbor. It 
is not for me to say that I love my neighbor as I do 
myself ; but I may be permitted to say that I love my 
neighbor. 

Rejoice ! The world is awakening ; hope is renewed. 
Roseate hues of the light of truth are athwart the sky ; 
the DAY dawns. Neighbor, to you and to me it is a 
good-morning. 


A PRELUDE. 


{Allegretto Animato.) 

Man — grandest of creatures ! Unto him has been 
given dominion and power over earth, air, and sea. 
With the special gift of his reasoning intelligence, he 
may reach out into the heavens and gain utility of 
wisdom from the stars. With but one timid, short 
step taken toward his attainable possibilities, yet has 
he harnessed the light, the heat, the chemic properties 
of the sun to serve him. Imponderable forces in earth, 
in air, and under the sea fly round the globe as his mes- 
sengers, or with marvelous speed carry him hither 
and thither, or bring and lay at his feet the fairest 
fruits of every clime. He utters speech ; and, outrun- 
ning the earthly measures of time, it circles a world 
in a few seconds. He looks curiously into the stellar 
spaces of the infinite with bold confidence, and hopes 
to hail other spheres in their courses — to converse 
with signaling souls in Mars. His listening ear catches 
the laugh and the wail of all the world. The very 
heart-throb of his “Neighbor” at the antipodes he 
hears. He pierces the earth, and from living arteries 
of its rock-locked depths spout up oil and crystal 
water. A thousand sleeping forces — some felt, some 
almost in sight — await his higher intelligence, his fur- 
ther search, his call ; all potent of marvelous better- 
ment for man. How magnificently grand are his pos- 


4 


A PREL UDE. 


sibilities ! How bounteous and inexhaustible the field 
oi opportunities -which. “ hath been given unto all the 
children of men ! ” 

{Andante Dolor oso.) 

In vain, anxious men are seeking for opportunities 
to live comfortably. Famine — a slow death of the 
underfed bodies and souls of men — is wreaking ven- 
geance for the violated laws of Nature. 

Hearts are heavy, hope gives way, lines of care, 
anxiety and fear are written on human faces— the 
faces of millions of men, women, and little children, 
whose opportunities are lost to them. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER I. 

A LOST OPPORTUNITY. A STAR OF HOPE. TIME PASSING. 

By a New England country roadside an old farm- 
house, low-roofed and browned with the storms and 
sunshine of years, stood with its gable towards the 
street. Great wings spread out to the right and left. 
An extension to the rear made kitchen, pantry and 
woodshed. The quaint, homely structure seemed to 
hover, like a mother-hen, over the brood confided 'to 
its keeping. There w-ere daffodils and quill-daisies, 
spider-lilies and grass-pinks, in beds either side of the 
path to the door ; hollyhocks, stiff and prim, flaunted 
their red or canary-yellow blooms with gaudy pride 
down by the gate ; all the old-time shrubs and vines 
were planted in Puritanic precision about the yard, or 
trailed their flowers in untended sweetness over trellis, 
post and porch. Two hours ago the summer sun had 
climbed up the gable, had kissed the chimney-top 
last, and then dropped down behind the western hill. 
The solemnly silent night had turned down both great 
lights of heaven, and the earth had bade her children 
rest. 

It was half-past nine on a July night, a starry and 


6 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


moonless night ; only the chirp of the crickets and the 
forever unsettled dispute of the katydids broke the 
calm. Hay-odored air, as it swept around the porch, 
picked up perfumes of honeysuckle, sweet-brier and 
balm, and wafted them to the windows and open doors 
of the house. 

The good farmer people were soundly sleeping the 
sleep of the weary, under the slant ceilings of the farm- 
house chambers. 

With half-opened eyes a collie dog dozed on the 
steps, ready to awaken the household with his loud 
barking and to frighten into hasty retreat any night 
marauders ; though Fido would probably yelp his first 
round’ of barks, bristle the hairs on his back and 
then run to the kennel behind the house to finish his 
threats in a series of muttering growls at that safe 
distance. 

A low-burning lamp gave out soft light in the great, 
square, old-fashioned parlor ; and here sat courting as 
true and worthy a pair as love ever made radiant with 
inspiration of hope. A kiss at the gate, a pressure of 
the hand, and vows of constancy — all treasured mem- 
ories — trifles, full of promise, had strengthened their 
hearts to highest hope and ambition ; such as love 
has inspired in the hearts of men and women ever 
since Adam and Eve courted in the garden of Para- 
dise. 

The parlor was tidy, simply furnished and whole- 
somely clean. A great Boston rocking-chair, with 
feather-filled cushion of chintz, swayed back and forth, 
holding within its widespread arms a precious burden 
of pinky-brown womanhood— Theoretta Vick, Neither 
pretty nor plain, but good-looking; a face of such 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


7 


sweet, frank naturalness that the play of emotions over 
it was more than charming — it was fascinating. She had 
blue-gray eyes that in rest looked thoughtful and just a 
trifle sad ; shining hair of a yellowish brown, waving 
a trifle at the temples, but nearly straight ; a carriage 
of natural grace, and a figure of easy lines. Such was 
the eldest of the five daughters of Farmer Vick. 

A straight-backed, old-fashioned mahogany chair was 
near her, and in it, looking affectionately at “Thetty,” 
yet with a trace of sadness in the look, sat John Hard- 
hand, second of the three sons of Worthy Hardhand, 
whose farm joined Farmer Vick’s on the north and 
east, and, taking a considerable sweep around to the 
westward along the south hill, ended with a wide 
stretch of marshland at the river. John Hardhand was 
at this time twenty-nine years old, and Thetty nearly 
twenty-six. He was a well-built, sun-browned, vigor- 
ous man — a living image of strength restrained. Some 
vertical lines in the forehead between his dark-brown, 
deep-set eyes, and two or three well-defined lines at 
the mouth corners, betokened intelligence and habits of 
thought unusual among men dwarfed and restrained, 
bound to the clod, by the vocation of farming. 

“ No, Thetty,” said John ; “we cannot be married 
this fall, as I had so earnestly hoped. I see it all now, 
as a fate beyond our control. We must wait at least 
another full year. 

The rocker that held her flew nervously back and 
forth, and partly expressed the emotions that welled up 
in the heart of Thetty Vick because of this hope de- 
ferred. She slowed down the furious pace of her rock- 
ing and, stopping at last, held out her hand to 
John, which he took in his own, as a mother might 


8 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


grasp her babe’s little hand when its life seemed slip- 
ping over the brink out of her reach. “John, my 
good, true John,” she said, “I can wait till a year, till 
years, till a life goes by, if it must be so, and you be 
true. I had hardly hoped to marry, had dismissed the 
thought, until the new hope came with your love. I 
shall never think of marrying, except to marry you — 
only you. But what new obstacle confronts us now.?” 

He gently released her hand and, interlocking his 
own hands behind his head, rested it in their palms, 
and with elbows spread out, as if to fly away in pros- 
pecting thought, gazed abstractedly toward the ceiling 
while he pictured the past and present, and drew from 
the future such comfort of hope as he could. 

“You know, Thetty,” said John, “of the mortgage 
on father’s farm .? It is now eight years since he has 
paid anything on the principal, which before that time 
he used to reduce a little every year. The mortgage 
matures, and is due, in September next. The bank 
people, who hold the mortgage, have always said that 
father might renew the mortgage indefinitely if he de- 
sired to do so ; but now, Mr. Opolee, president of the 
bank, who is also a proprietor of the Scarborough Mills, 
is building a new stone dam across the river at the 
narrows, below Henchman’s basin. The engineer’s sur- 
vey shows that the back-water will coverall our marsh- 
land and about a third of the north meadow. The 
pond will submerge about sixty-eight acres of our land. 
Mr. Opolee offers pa twelve dollars an acre for it, 
which, amounting to eight hundred and sixteen dollars, 
is sufficient to pay this year’s interest on the mortgage 
and five hundjed and sixteen dollars of the- principal. 
Father has been much distressed this year with the 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


9 


fear that he would not be able to save enough out of 
all our hard work to meet the interest ; which he has 
never yet failed to pay. Mr. Opolee says that the new 
dam, and the flooding of that land is necessary to 
store up water for the increasing needs of the mills, and 
he must have it ; that if father will not sell him the 
land at the price he offers, some other owner of the 
land will do so, for the bank will not renew the mort- 
gage unless there is at least two hundred dollars paid 
on the principal ; otherwise it will be foreclosed. 

“1 know from his insinuations that, if we don’t sell 
him that land, the mortgage will be foreclosed anyway, 
unless it is paid entirely, which cannot possibly be 
done. And what remains for us to do but to yield to the 
power he wields.? With the system of drainage I had 
planned I could make that sixty-eight acres of marsh- 
land the richest and best soil on the farm. Pa owes 
me three hundred and fifty dollars on his note, for labor 
done on the farm since I came back. He offered to 
sell the marshland to me at twelve dollars an acre, pay- 
ing off his note in that way, and would take my note 
for the remainder — four hundred and sixty-six dollars — 
at five per cent, interest on easy terms ; say, a hundred 
and twenty-two dollars a year and interest. On such 
terms I could easily pay it out of the proceeds of my 
crops from the land. Father made me that offer for the 
purpose of giving me a start ; and it would also ease 
his finances. I think I\Ir. Opolee must have learned 
from some source of father’s proposition to me, and 
that he based his offer to father on that information. 
You can see, Thetty, there’s no alternative but to ac- 
cept Mr. Opolee’s terms, or fare worse. And all those 
bright plans and pictures you and I have made fall 


o 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


flat.” And his chest rose and fell with a silent but 
deep-drawn sigh. 

“No, John,” said Thetty, “no; the picture is 
always there, and we will live in the present love for 
each other, which fills and rounds out our lives, and the 
picture of what is to be, while we make new plans for 
a reward sure to come to earnest effort for so worthy a 
purpose.” 

“ But, Thetty,” said John, “ I had built so carefully 
and had measured the future so certainly that this 
comes like lightning from a clear sky. I had hoarded the 
remnant of my Western venture — the four hundred dol- 
lars I brought back with me from Dakota — and I pro- 
posed to employ it in a drainage system on that marsh. 
Once drained, aerated and mulched, that land would 
make the best tobacco land in Connecticut. A tariff has 
boen put on cigar wrappers which practically prohibits 
the employment of Sumatra wrapper tobacco, and 
American smokers will be forced to pay a tremendous 
price and large profits to the few tobacco raisers along 
the river bottom-lands of Connecticut which is the 
one spot in the United States where good wrapper 
tobacco can be raised. I had carefully estimated that 
from next year’s crop I could construct my curing 
barns, build a snug home up by the hill road, fit it up 
to your taste, Thetty, take a honeymoon-trip to New 
York with you, and have four or five hundred dollars 
besides ; more than enough to pay father’s note. All 
that was easily possible out of one crop of wrapper 
tobacco from that marsh. But, somehow, Mr. Opolee 
seems always to get there first, and now, as in his pur- 
chase of the park site in Scarborough last year, all 
the dainties go to him and his sort, and only the dust 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


II 


of their chariot-wheels comes back to us, to blind our 
eyes and befog our minds and fill us with wondering 
awe of ‘ the mighty.' And whether it be lands or 
factories, railroads, banks or tariffs, all the plums of 
profit fall into his basket. Either he is exceptionally 
smart and we are pitifully stupid, or something, some- 
where, in our present civilization is radically wrong.” 

“Don’t despair, dear; you’re a good and worthy 
man, John. It is too bad that you also cannot find 
room at the top, for you are stronger and wiser and 
better than the best of them. When I think of Opolee 
and Riff, Mr. Lord and all that class, and then think of 
you, I could almost adore you, John Hardhand, for 
your greater manliness, worthiness, wisdom and good- 
ness. The world shall know you some day for what 
you are, as I know you now. And then our brightest 
hopes shall be realized.” 

“ Poor Thetty,” John replied, “your heart misleads 
your judgment; love has made you blind, and your 
heart’s ideal has pictured in me what isn’t there. I all 
too sadly feel, and know, that I am not wise nor cun- 
ning nor crafty, like Mr. Lord, but am only earnest 
and zealous ; and, above all else, Thetty, I mean to be 
honest, and will be true to my convictions. When cun- 
ning leads the way toward success, my conviction of 
what is right steps into the path to confront me and 
cries out, Halt ! If the road leads over the heads of 
other men, trodden down, that I may march on to 
victory at such cost of conscience. Such success is 
impossible to me. I cannot willingly advance myself 
by stamping others down ; nor accept the survival of 
the strongest or the most unscrupulous as a ‘ survival of 
the fittest. ’ Because I cannot fit such a fiendish doctrine 


12 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


to my moral nor religious sense — my sense of common 
justice — I am robbed of nearly all hope, for I see the 
whole world of men in a battle for life pitted against 
one another, grabbing at the spread food of the 
‘Fathers table,' calling it right that first come should 
be first served, and that the devil should take the hind- 
most— he who comes next after the first, the children 
of to-morrow." 

“Since you distrust my judgment, John, and some- 
what discredit my estimate of those Scarborough people 
and of yourself ; since you think my love has blinded 
me, I am tempted to undeceive you. 1 shall let you into 
a little secret, known here only to Maggie, sister ]\Iag- 
gie, and myself Maggie is not overfond of house- 
work, nor handy at it ; she hasn’t a mind to see the 
dignity of it, nor does she exalt it upon the pedestal of 
honorable duty. She calls it drudgery. She sews 
or crochets with tolerable patience, but scrubs the 
floor only when she is ashamed to be idle while her four 
sisters are at hard and dirty work. Mother and five 
daughters, with no son and-brother in the family, makes 
the house-nest overfull of girls, and Maggie feels she can 
be spared from work which she doesn’t like over- 
well to do work more to her taste. She has a worthy 
desire to be less dependent on pa, who has his hands 
full to meet all our women’s wants and to hire all the 
farm help besides, which of course he has to do. 
When Maggie went to the Scarborough school of tech- 
nology, she learned stenography and typewriting, and 
got a tolerable knowledge of Durwent's system of book- 
keeping. Maggie is of an affectionate, sympathetic and 
sensitive nature, but she is timid, and lacks confidence 
in herself She was anxious to try to get employment 


/UST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


13 


at Scarborough in some of the business offices or the 
bank, and was afraid to go alone. So she confided 
her secret to me and urged me to go with her to sus- 
tain her courage and relieve the embarrassment of 
going alone on such a mission. I went ; and it is out 
of the experience of that visit to the wealthy em- 
ployers, the business men, of Scarborough that I pass 
judgment on them. As a class, they are neither broad- 
ly educated, wise, nor of a superior order of manhood or 
ability. Cunning they have and self-confidence, but 
no confidence in others. They rely upon advantage 
over others, and the duty, the business duty, to seek it, 
take it, and use it at every opportunity. Their thoughts 
and methods are really so unworthy that they must be 
hidden and secret, as they are wrought in secret, 
or all would fail them. The frank, open candor 
which belongs to the highest manhood is impos- 
sible to them, would be ruinous to their schemes. 
While they use with profit to themselves an exterior of 
cultured courtesy, they fail to conceal from the most 
careless observer their weak conceit, born of their 
material prosperity, that they are of finer and better 
clay than less successful men ; and each measures 
himself by his own financial success, no matter how 
he gained it, while he loftily criticises the immoral 
methods by which his compeers have won their suc- 
cess.” 

“I have thought much the same, Thetty,” John 
replied, “but of course we are more or less prejudiced, 
and our thoughts are born more of conjecture than of 
knowledge. Such men are aloof from such as I, and of 
their inner lives little is known by the poor, whom they 
exploit with a masterly hand. Indeed, Thetty, I am sur- 


14 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


prised that, with the experience of only a call, you, with 
a woman’s quick intuition, have reached almost my 
own conclusions, although I have met these men and 
done business with them many times.” 

Thetty looked up at him with a little conceit of pride 
as she continued, “I imagine that to two unmarried, 
work-seeking women, as we were, who with modest 
dignity held these masters at greater distance than they 
wished, but still came asking favor, begging work, the 
real character of these men was more nearly disclosed 
than usual. There are doubtless many men more 
worthy ; but those we met were calloused by their 
‘world’s-work’ into absolute insensibility of honor, vir- 
tue, or noble purpose. And the public deference which 
they pay to morals, religion, patriotism and virtue, and 
which fills the outward social character of their lives, is 
only a profitable respect, unwillingly given to a public 
opinion which privately they mock at and pity and de- 
spise. That is emphatically true of INIr. Opolee, and 
almost as true of all of them.” 

“ Thetty, did any of the brutal lot dare to use disre- 
spectful language — in — the presence of — a lady .? — in 
your presence ? ” 

“Don’t excite yourself, John dear, on that score. 
Yes, I will tell you, one of them did ; but thanks to the 
foresight that sent two of us, not one alone, when he 
offered the veiled insult, he was confronted with the 
dignity of self-respect ; the honest, prompt resentment 
of a self-respecting woman, and became himself the 
humiliated victim of his indiscretion. Mr. Opolee had 
said to us there was no unfilled position in his office 
at present ; but he chatted on in an over-familiar way, 
and later on insinuated that a chance might occur soon, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


15 


if the lady met the requirements. This he said with 
a look of quick scrutiny, and arching of the eyebrows, 
and an inflection on the word requirements, all directed 
to my sister, which sent the red blood to her face and 
to mine, and we arose abruptly to go. He, too, arose 
hastily and made apology, but in such clumsy embar- 
rassment as to utterly belie his assertion that we ‘ mis- 
understood him,’ and that he was ‘most desirous of 
granting us any possible aid.’ He was really startled, 
alarmed, at the possible consequences of his mistake, 
and deeply humiliated; for I had found him out. He 
had shown his meanness, and I my womanly courage. 
I had my revenge. It seems to me that they look upon 
women, at least dependent women, as brainless, un- 
thinking creatures, only intended for their service or 
amusement. They fearlessly talked before sister and 
myself — while we waited our chance to make our 
errand known — with perfect abandon of their plans 
and schemes ; talked that which they would never 
have dared discuss in the presence of men, of business 
men. We did not find a place for Maggie, but got some 
encouragement to try later at the office of the Electric 
Railroad Co., and INIaggie will go down in August to 
see them again. She says she must try to be self- 
dependent, for, so far as she can see, none of the young 
men who are fit to be husbands have opportunities or 
incomes to safely assume the responsibility of a home 
and the care of even two persons.” 

“ Thetty, I have lost the chance of my life through 
that mortgage matter. I am beginning to doubt if there 
is going to be any encouraging opportunity for me here, 
and to wonder if there is not some more desirable and 
profitable place for me elsewhere, I begin to feel that 


i6 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


I must tramp away from the place where I have lived 
and want to live, to find the place where I can live. I 
don’t see why manufacturing business, manufacturing 
work, cannot be done by honorable men and honest 
methods. If one makes any good thing that the world 
needs, the people, I believe, will reward him for it ; and 
one need not be a rascal because he is a successful 
man. I believe I shall go to New York or some other 
big city, and make an effort to change my vocation 
anyhow. ” 

“ I fear, John, it is too nearly true that, though a man 
need not be a rascal because he is successful, he is 
oftener nowadays financially successful because he is 
a rascal. You can’t be successful that way if you try ; 
and you’ll never try.” 

The two chatted on for a while over ways and means, 
all too uncertain to give much hope, and when, a half 
hour later, John sighed and arose to go, he said, “1 
think I shall go down and try any way, for there is no 
chance to get ahead here, and any move is a move in 
the dark, Thetty. I must go home now, dear,” and 
he took his hat which she handed him. 

She slipped her arm into his, and they slowly walked 
out into the night of the world, starlighted down the 
path by love, nothing else, just love and the hope she 
bears. There are widespread maples on both sides of 
the country road past the Sconset farms, and on this 
moonless night they threw shades of impenetrable 
darkness over the way that lay before John Hardhand. 
When they parted at the gate, he caught at the hand 
she held out to him as if it were a cable to draw him 
out from the swirl of an angry sea. He lifted her plump 
little hand to his lips and reverently kissed it. But, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


17 


touched with pity for him and seeing’ his need of cheer, 
she prettily pursed her mouth and held it up to be 
kissed, as she gave his hand a tell-tale squeeze which 
said to the heart that knew how to read love’s message 
aright : “ In sorrow, as in joy, my heart goes with you 
ever, John ; be cheered, good man/’ 

Down into the darkness he went, so filled with con- 
flicting emotions as to be careless of where he stepped 
or how. He scrambled along the dark way, and more 
than once nearly fell. Once, when he had gone but a 
few rods down the roadway, he stopped for a moment 
to look back at that sacred place in the darkness where 
despair had been kindled to hope by the touch of love. 
Ah ! there she still stood. A broad stream of lamp- 
light from out the parlor window shot down along the 
path, covering and inclosing Thetty with a. halo as she 
stood at the gate. She stood irradiated — John’s anchor 
of hope, his guardian angel. Tall, willowy, graceful, 
transfigured against the background of the world’s 
night, with her right hand raised to her forehead, she 
peered from under its shadow down into the darkness 
where John had gone. Star of his hope ! Her eyes 
ever sought him out ; her prayers, her hopes, her 
love ever followed him. He would think of her so, 
would carry that picture ever with him. 

That John might not needlessly waken the folks from 
their sleep in the silence of night, he quietly, stealthily, 
entered his home through the kitchen-door at the rear. 
The tall, old-fashioned clock in the corner ticked loud- 
ly, in ominous tone, and it called him out of the riot 
of thought and the schemes of men back to a sense of 
the sadness of life. The intense quiet startled him. 
He seemed to himself like a guilty trespasser in a tomb, 


i8 


. JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


He walked with cat-like tread, on his toes, as he en- 
tered the kitchen, and held his breath as he paused to 
note the voice of the clock that fairly spake as it 
knocked off the seconds of life in a swinging, rhythmic, 
measured tread. Quite in time and tune with his 
thoughts, it said, plainly enough, to John, Farmer 
John : 

I'ick-tack, tick-tack. 

Time goes ahead, but never goes back ; 

Though hope be deferred and anxiety rack 
Thy soul, poor man, tick-tack ; 

You must go ahead, and you cannot turn back. 

Tick-tack, tick-tack. 

Time paces on, and thy end comes quick, 

Tack-tick, tack-tick ; 

Though darkness of trouble be ever so thick. 

Think quickly and act, for you must be quick, 

Tack-tick, tack-tick ; 

Though hearts be hopeful or hearts be sick. 

Tack-tick, tack-tick, tack-tick, tack-tick. 

There’s a laughing babe in its mother’s lap. 

And I tick-tack, tick-tack ; 

And the babe is a widowed mother, in black. 

Tick-tack, tick-tack ; 

And to-day she is dead that was yesterday sick, 

Tack-tick, tack-tick. 

The candle of life burns out so quick, 

Tack-tick, tack-tick ; 

Set it aloft in its candlestick, 

Tack-tick, tack-tick ; 

Trim it to lighten the world, right quick, 

Tack'tick, tack-tick. 

You mu§t straight on In your journey, John, 

And yovi gannet tnrn back, whatever the track, 

Tick-tack, tickdack, tickdack, tick-tack. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


19 


He crept softly up to bed, and life seemed to his 
shaken soul a monstrous problem. He lay for a long 
time with his face buried in his folded arms and with 
heaving chest, fighting back unmanly tears ; but he 
fell asleep. Benedicite ! 

The life-wearied man overslept. The sun shone 
into the room when he waked and went down to the 
opened door of a new life, to meet his fate, in the 
morning. 


so 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER II. 

OFF. 

“ Hullo, Jahn ! ” said old Jimmy McGurk, as he got 
up from the doorstep of Farmer Hardhand’s house, 
where he sat smoking a short black pipe. “ Gud 
mornin ’, mon.” For John had just stepped out of the 
door, with unkempt, frouzy hair, and stood shielding 
his eyes from the glorious morning sun with his big 
brown hand. 

‘ I were a-settin’ here, Jahn, for nigh onto a half an 
hour a-waitin’ to see ye.’^ 

“Well, Jimmy, what is it you want.?” John in- 
quired. 

To which Jimmy replied in the best of brogues and 
the richest of rolling r s : 

“Yous can do me a turren, Jahn, as will help me in 
mathers bey ant me ken ; ye have a bit lamin’, can 
read and write and figger and sich, and I can nayther 
do wan nor the other ; and the hops I raished lasht year 
on .the Laidler farm lot, and sint to New Yarrock to be 
sold in commission, is burned en a fire, wid the ware- 
house where they was shtored. The ’shurance was 
ped fer wid de storage, but folks tells me as how I will 
have to prove the vally of me stuff and look sharp to 
the figgerin’ of me loss to get me money. I don’t 
Itnow how is the way, an’ Tm afeart of the lieyers an’ 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


21 


ain’t afeard o’ yous. You can fix it all fer me as well 
as they, uvery bit, an’ I’ll give ye the money now for 
the thravel an’ boord, and pay ye well afther for yer 
trouble, and ye can sind me the money be mail, an’ 
shtop a bit to see the city as well.” 

“And when do you wish me to go, Jimmy? ” 

“They tells me as read the lethers, that the claim- 
ants must meet the appraisers at noon of to-day ; and to 
get there before it, ye’ll have to take the 8:20 train, an’ 
it’s goin’ on siven o’clock now.” 

“ I’ll go, Jimmy. Bring over tome all the papers as 
quick as you can.” 

John hastily washed, combed his hair and donned his 
Sunday-clothes. He sat down to the breakfast his 
mother had kept warm for him in the oven, and which 
was now hastily spread on the table. She went gliding 
about, getting collars, shirts, ties, underclothing, and all 
needful apparel, and packed his bag while he ate, 
for Jimmy had told her of his wishes before John was 
up, but not of the time to go. John bolted his break- 
fast, and hastily added some needfuls which his mother 
had left out of the handbag, a photograph or two and 
some letters, for he meant to stop longer than his 
mother supposed. Jimmy brought in the papers, which 
John carefully placed in the bag, and then, closing it 
with a snap, he turned down the swing ears at the ends, 
set it down on the chair, and hurried off up to Farmer 
Vick’s, alternately walking and running in his haste. 
Thetty saw him coming, and with wondering eyes came 
hurrying down to the gate. She listened to the tale of 
his quickly-made plans. He kissed Thetty’s hand, for 
good Mrs. Vick, with wonderment, too, stood looking 
down at them from the piazza, with sleeves rolled up, 


22 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


a checked apron on, her hands on her hips, and a curious, 
welcoming smile brightening her face. 

“Thetty,” he said, “ Tm going to try.’’ And with a 
wave of the hand in hasty salute to Mrs. Vick, he went 
pacing away under the maples. 

He only stopped at his home to get the bag and to 
kiss his mother, and as the train rolled up he stood on the 
platform and stepped aboard. 

A clanging bell, some slow and some rapid, wheezy 
puffs, the roar of wheels on a distant track, and then, 
down by the curve where the engine gave three toots 
as the train had swept round out of sight, great rolls of 
black or drab smoke tumble over and through each 
other, the distant roar dies out, and John is gone. 

A flock of blackbirds fly over the track at the curve 
and alight in the alders. A meadow-lark sails down 
into the dew-wet grass of the meadow ; a lumber 
wagon goes banging and rattling down the hill 
toward Henchman’s Dam. A grass-sparrow alights on 
a stake of the fence and, lifting its bill toward the 
heavens, flutters the feathers of its throat with the ’ 
sweetest bird-song God ever tuned to salute a morning 
sky. A perfectly noiseless quiet, a country quiet, a 
moment to think, and the world moves peacefully on 
again. The pebble went in and down, the circles are 
widened and lost to our eyes, and the sea of life is 
smooth. 

Well, well ! John Hardhand gone to New York ! So 
we plan and figure, and fail ; and destiny comes rush- 
ing on to grapple and fling us into the vortex where 
we must strike out, right and left, or go down, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


23 


CHAPTER III. 

SUMMER BOARDERS 

Summer boarders came up every year to Scon- 
set from the city. It busied good Mother Vick and 
the girls for a month or two, it helped to grind out 
the income-grist that went to the mortgagee, and it 
left a little toll for the family “furbelows.” At noon 
of the day John left home there came, among many 
others, a letter from Brooklyn, N. Y., to 

“ My Dear, Dear Mrs. Vick. 

“ Baby, and Johnny and Ruth and myself will be up on Saturday 
next to spend some weeks in the hills and tone up a bit. You must 
give us the same two rooms we had last year, and milk and fruit and 
meat of the best, for I am ‘all run down.’ Tennis rackets, ham- 
mocks and croquet sets we will bring with us, and if you can only 
hire Miss Rogers’ piano for the summer, so we can have a one set 
german in the parlor of nights, it will be very jolly 5 and tell John, 
Thetty’s John, (I’d fall in love with John, if I was not tied to a 
stick, and Thetty had not chained John to her), tell him to fix up 
the old boat for the river, and the lines and artificial ‘ flies to cheat 
the fish ’ till we land ’em. And tell good Father Vick to fix up the 
harness and get out the old side seat market wagon, for we must 
have moonlight rides and frolics and a roistering time. Mrs. Tem- 
pest and her family are coming to Butners, the Finefly girls to the 
Rush House, and when the fellows come up for the Saturday run, to 
go back on Monday, as they will each week, you are so near New 
York, we will make it so lively there that we can’t find time to 
quarrel and fret as we women did last year. I, too, wanted to go down 
to the Rush House on the river opposite Scarborough, but Hubby 
says, no ! He is an awfully sober and sensible person, you know, and 
he says, ‘Mother Vick’s, and the milk, and quiet and sleep, is what 
you need. The Rush House is only a bit of a city show set down in 


24 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


a country road to poison Nature’s very best gifts.’ But I think the 
dress and frolics are awfully nice, and besides there is a chance to 
humble the pride of that swell Mrs. Ponsby. She just thinks her 
Worth-made gowns and her French accent (more Irish than French) 
so captivating. And with young Delaplane fawning about her (she 
might pass for his mother) she thought she just broke our hearts 
with jealousy. He is a very nice young man, with a pretty dark 
mustache, and we all liked him very much, but she ; what with her 
decollete dress, and her evening walks with that man; it was dreadful 
and shameful, we all allowed, and just wished some one could humble 
her pride or just let Mr. Ponsby know of her carryings on. Thetty 
won’t mind if you let Ruth, our nurse, sleep with her, will she? 
Ruth is a tidy girl, she came off a farm, you know, and is yankee 
enough for the best. With ever and ever so much love, I am ever, 

“ Your true, tried friend, 

“ Mrs. Thomas Dorrance. 

“ P.S. — Mr. Dorrance will likely think he must come up once in a 
while of a Sunday, though what he wants of the country I can’t see. 
He never goes down to the Island or anywhere else as other men do, 
but mopes about at home and writes love-letters and sermons to his 
wife ; his own wife ; as if that was not all understood, without wast- 
ing the paper^ and ink to tell it all over and over, and time that 
might be spent in fun, and having a real good time. I think men are 
such queer creatures, anyhow, don’t you ? 

“ Minnie Dorrance.” 

Good Mother Vick’s mail these days was something 
marvelous, and very interesting. It was instructive, 
as well, to the student of social phenomena. She was 
‘'My dear, dear,” to every one of the “true and tried 
friends,” who were hunting for the place they could 
speak of, as, “ where we go for the summer,” and she 
was plain “ Mrs. Joel Vick ” to the husbands who wrote 
to ask : 

“ What rooms have you for my wife and two daughters, Laura 
and Grace ? And what are you going to charge for their board ? 
Our house here on 9th Ave., Brooklyn, fronts and overlooks Pros- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


25 


pect Park. It is on the very ridge of Long Island. We get a delight- 
ful, fresh breeze from either the land or the sea, of the purest air 
this world can give ; and it is a marvel to me, what drives Mrs. Win- 
dam to go up and pack into your little stuffy bedrooms and live in a 
trunk, even with the good, clean hospitality and kindly service you 
have to offer, but she is dying for change she says (she is always 
shouting for change, and manages to get most of mine). And the 
girls could never go back to school and have to say, “ We didn’t go 
to the country this year.” Nor can Mrs. W. stand the questioning 
criticisms of Mrs. Grundy, who is sure to say, bye and bye : “ Where 

did you summer ? ” I think Mrs. W. will not take part in the 
women’s quarrels that made you and your home so unhappy last year. 
At least she has promised .she won’t. Try to make room for me at 
the table occasionally on Sunday when I run up, and if you don’t 
happen to have a Hoffman House bridal chamber at my command 
in your good homelike hovel, just send me out to sleep on the hay 
in the barn. I won’t kick if the horses don’t. I am. Madam, most 
respectfully yours, 

“ G. P. WiNDAM.” 

A letter came from a young lady, who worked in a 
cloak factory, one who by dint of a whole year s econ- 
omies, had hoarded up the marvelous sum of twenty- 
five dollars for this special purpose ; who was worn 
with work, down to a colorless phantom of what God 
had designed her to be. Out of the pent little hot, 
stifling rooms of a twelve dollar flat, she wrote : 

“ Good Mrs. Vick. 

“ The taste of freedom and flowers and fields, and, above all else, 
the frank, natural kindliness of yourself and your daughters, to me, 
together with the plain goodies, fresh from the farm fields, did me so 
much good last summer, that the memory of it all has cheered me 
through the long year. I have stored up nickels and dimes and 
dollars as I could, at my piece-work, working a little earlier and a 
little later, and all the holidays of the year, but one, and now I have 
permission for “two weeks off” (I think the foreman saw it was 
rest or wreck with me). Can I come to you Monday ? (I must pack 
on Sunday) and sleep with Thetty, the odd sister ? (How lucky for 


26 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


me you have five daughters instead of four or six). They were all 
real good and kind to me, but, somehow, Thetty and I were such 
friends, you know. I heard you were going to raise your prices this 
year, that it did not profit you for your trouble. I did not hear it 
until ’twas too late to make more of my funds, and if you can’t take 
me at six dollars, the same as last year, I cannot come, for my money 
will not permit, and I will have to gulp down the sobs of a disap- 
pointment more bitter than I can write. They say love wdll starve a 
cat, but I know love will feed a hungry soul, and you must write me 
at once or it will be too late ; and I can’t get my vacation changed to 
any other date, for the foreman just told me so. 

“ Very truly yours, 

“ Etta May Foyle.” 

How little indeed the favored ones of this world know 
how like an oasis in the desert of a hard-pressed life 
comes the sweetness of Nature’s treasures to the thirsty 
soul of a mortal like Etta Foyle. Alas, that the surfeit 
of wealth and the pinch of poverty’s pain, should wreak 
such wreck of the joy of living that God has pre- 
pared for his children. 

Mrs. Vick delegated to Thetty the work of replying 
to the letters that came in great numbers. And Thetty, 
good soul, wrote first to Etta Foyle, for she could not 
help it, though Etta’s letter came last. She wrote, 
“Come, bless you, we have always a welcome for you.” 
And to Mrs. Dorrance replied : 

“ We cannot promise the two best rooms fo^so long, and my 
‘ bed-fellowess ’ has already secured Ruth’s favor Jl place, but, come 
on, we will prepare for you and do the best we cam *The wagon is out 
and the boat is repaired, but John is not here, andyou may have to fix 
your own bait for the fish.” 

And to Mr. Windam she wrote : 

Yes, Mrs. W^. and Laura and Grace may come next week and 
the price is eight dollars each. It will stop the financial leak that 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


27 


the mortgage makes in our funds and it helps you to stop up Mrs. 
Grundy’s mouth, too, I suppose, so we will all give thanks. Let 
them come. We will say, nothing, for the Sundays for yourself. 
You must pay us with the funny old saws, and the good-humor and 
cheer with which you salted our dinners last year, 

“ Respectfully, 

“ Theoretta Vick.” 

And to Widow Craft, and Gertie and Jennie she wrote, 
“Come.” And to Tendril and his wife she wrote, 
“Come.” And they came. To the others she wrote, 
“Not this week, but possibly next. The room is all 
engaged now ; we will write you a line later on.” And 
so the annual trouble began. 


28 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


. CHAPTER IV. 

OLD BAT AND HIS CASTLE. “THE POWER TO TAKE THE 
MUTTON. ” 

As one drives down the Sconset road under the shade 
of the maples toward Scarborough bridge, the Shore 
Line from New York to Boston strings its wires and 
tracks for many miles right parallel with it, in sight 
all along and but little way off. About half a mile 
from Farmer Vick’s, a narrower road turns squarely off 
from the Sconset road and across the railroad. It leads 
to somewhere over the hill, we do not care where, for 
we are not going all the way. Just a short way up this 
lane, in a shanty-like house, made for the most part of 
awing from old Sconset tavern that was burned a long 
time since and of which but this bit remained as a 
souvenir of departed grandeur, lived Mr. Bartholomew 
McAuliffe. From the old boards and posts of a wind- 
wrecked cornhouse he had built a shed-like ell to his 
house, much like the structure called in the West, a 
“lean-to.” The lean-to was roofed with cast-off tin 
roofing which he had found at the refuse dumping 
grounds down by Scarborough. Altogether, the home 
of Mr. Bartholomew McAuliffe was made up of old tin 
and shingles, odd windows and doors, relics of the 
antique and patches of the present. From the clumsy 
leather-hinged gate at the front, to the old tumbledown 
barn and piggery at the rear of the house, the whole 
outfit was as grotesque, novel and rugged as the 
character and figure of old Bartholomew himself 

The shanty had its humor, too. The lean-to was 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


29 


a standing comedy ; held up to the house in all its 
patchwork of straggling shingles and bits of board, by 
the funny old blanket of tin, which, nailed at its upper 
part to the old tavern wing, lapped over the eaves at 
the lower edge of the lean-to and held it from fall- 
ing to final wreck. Adding yet more to the comical 
incongruity, was a bit of tin used to piece out a scant 
corner of the roof. It was the wreck of an old tin beer 
sign, which, black, on vermilion ground, had once 
read : “Come in here ! The glass of beer that you 
get in this house is the coolest and best in the town for 
the money.” 

The painted picture of a big overflowing beer-glass 
was nearly all cracked off, as, also, all but some frag- 
ments of the lettering on the upper half of the old sign, 
but the lower part "was quite complete, and read plainly 
enough, “ This house is the coolest and best in the 
town for the money.” 

The proclamation thus prominently made, was no 
more trite and funny, than true ; for barring the money 
old Bat had spent in moving the tavern wing onto the 
spot, little more had gone into the building but odds 
and ends, which without money cost, he had picked 
up here and there and with his own labor pieced into 
the house. 

Mr. McAuliffe was a “squatter.” That is, he was 
living, without permission, on earth from which the 
owner had not “ shooed ” him off. He tilled the soil 
alongside the track for half a mile or more either way, 
and raised potatoes and corn and beans, and tethered 
a cow. He also had in the piggery some fine fat pigs. 

Old Bat and his family lived fully as comfortably and 
with much less fret and worry than most American 


30 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


farmers ; “so they did,” and he knew it and said it. It 
was a significant fact, was it not Bartholomew Mc- 
Auliffe was a funny man. His fortunes and faith and 
hope were all sustained by the good-humor that per- 
colated its sweetening treasure through every thought 
and word and act of the poor, ignorant old man's life. 
As the odd roof of tin and scraps held up the lean-to 
and anchored it to the house, so in each, or both, the 
man and the house, good-humor was ever on top. 

The pork was snapping and sizzling down to a crisp 
in the spider. The kettle was singing on the stove, 
and Mr. Bartholomew McAuliffe sat on a quaint 
board bench just outside the door, smoking and await- 
ing his breakfast. Like old Jimmy McGurk, “ old 
Bat ” made a very strong friend of a very short pipe. 
He sat puffing away in short little snaps, when Jimmy’s 
boy, Terrence, came down the road and hailed the old 
man with. 

“ Good-mornin’, Mr. McAuliffe.” 

“ Good-day to you, Teddy,” says Bat, “ and did yer 
auld mon get settled wid deshurance min an de hops, 
Terrence .? ” 

“ He did,” says Teddy, “andkem out bether nor he 
taut he wud. He got a good hoondered an fortee, and 
he says it’s as good as he did last year, and that, too, 
afther sen din’ back twinty dollars to Jack Hardhand, 
who sint up to th’ auld mon ivery cint that he got from 
the shurance min, but the price of the thravel an boord, 
never keepin’ a dime for his labor and trouble in doin’ 
me father sich a good job. Me father says Jahn is as 
good a Yankee as if he were born in Ireland.” 

“ Sure, Teddy,” says Bat, “ you’re the cub of a lucky 
mon ; an’ be that token ye’ll be wan day a boss o’ de 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


31 


gang, and drive in a ^vaggin wid yer Irish nose turned 
up a-snuffin’ at the commoner sort. Say, Teddy, do 
ye’s know, ’twas a bad bit o’ fortin that med auld Mishter 
Hardhand sell the marshland to the Mill Company, 
stid o’ lettin’ Jahn have it ” 

“An’ who was tellin’ye, Mishter McAuliffe, that Jahn 
had wint for to buy it .? ” 

“ Sure, Teddy, an’ Jahn tault me himself, this day 
week, and all about ditchin’ an farmin’ it up, much the 
same as we do bogland in the Auld Country ; an he 
said as how he would give me stiddy worruk wid me 
shpade in the ditches till frasht kem hard in the fall, an’ 
thin agin in the tobaccy fields all through next year, so 
I liked.” 

“An’ what a day did he say he’d give ye.?” asked 
Terrence. 

“O, bother yer fears, Teddy, never a worrud sid he 
nor sid I, about price. John Hardhand would do me 
the right, niver fear ; I'd thrust him wid all I have, an’ 
de kays o’ me castle ; an honester, bether man never 
faddled a flipper this side of the Irish Say. O, yerre, 
Teddy, here cooms yer auld mon.” 

Teddy startled and nestled about ; looked first toward 
his father and then toward the crossing, not knowing 
whether it was safer and better to humble his own 
importance and scud off in haste, or wait until his 
father came up and see if he would humble it for him ; 
for Bat’s left-handed compliments and kindly familiarity 
began to make Teddy feel that he counted one in the 
world, himself. So he stayed. 

“ An’ phat are ye doin’ here .? ” said Jimmy McGurk to 
the boy. “Ye gossipin’, blatherin’ blagaard, can ye’s 
niver do as yer tault .? Go hitch up the harse an’ draw up 


32 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


the wood from the cove for yer mother ; jist wait till yer 
mother gets howlt o’ ye, lad ! Be off wid yer now ! ” 

With never a word of reply, but with humbled and 
angerful face, Teddy McGurk shambled off down the 
road. 

“ Good-mornin’ to ye, Mishter McAuliffe,” said 
Jimmy, “ an’ how’s Mrs. McAuliffe, an’ how’s the 
young leddy ? ” 

The young lady to whom Jimmy referred, was none 
other than the only daughter, perhaps only child, 
of the house of McAuliffe, for the son had not been 
heard from since he ran off to sea four years ago. 
Katie McAuliffe was witty and wise and pretty. One 
of those rare sweet flowers that push their heads up out 
of the weeds, looking a trifle paler perhaps, a bit more 
delicate from the shade, but all the more beautiful, 
because of the contrasting environment. Just at that 
moment she came to the door, and she answered 
Jimmy’s grandiloquent salute with a friendly nod and 
kindly smile of recognition. Where could she have 
gotten that perfect complexion and figure, and that 
pretty face ? Her mother had, in exaggeration, all the 
features peculiar to her race ; projecting chin, straight 
cut mouth, long upper lip, high cheek-bones, but 
peculiarly bright and pleasing eyes. And old Bat’s 
face was puckered and tanned out of all semblance to 
beauty, if ever it had any. Thin and bony it was, but 
strewn all over with lines of drollery and saddened 
good-humor. A wise and a thoughtful look, too, was 
there ; a face to study. It was funny to hear those 
people who were cultured, but only half as wise, speak 
in a patronizing way of “ poor, ignorant, funny old 
Batty McAuliffe. ” As peculiar as it was true, was the 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


33 


fact that old “Bat,” as he was familiarly called, was 
an oracle of wisdom among his class. And though 
he could with difficulty spell out the news in the paper, 
and made no pretense to write at all, nor was he saga- 
cious nor cunning in hoarding up wealth for himself, 
yet he was a confidant and adviser of old men and 
youth, because he was hearty and- kindly and natural. 
Boys and young men of American birth made friends 
with old Bat ; for but little race hatred was known in 
this sparsely-peopled country-place, and the miserable 
clannishness that divides great cities into sections 
known as “Dutchtown,” “Young Ireland,” “Jeru- 
salem Row,” and “ Crow Hill,” is unknown in Sconset. 

Something in John Hardhand’s manner when he 
went away, and more in the letter that came with the 
money to Mr. McGurk, made Jimmy think that John 
had gone to stay. Made him curious to know what 
John was planning to do, and what had cheated him 
out of the marshland scheme, and the marriage which 
all Sconset was ready to bless. 

“ Say, Misther McAuliffe,” said Jimmy, “fiisbeyent 
me ken, what med auld Mr. Hardhand sell the marsh 
to the boss of the mills, stid o’ John.” 

“ Me good mon,” says Bat, “ yer so foxy to smell 
out a dollar, an’ wise to put it to keep, sure I’m knockin’ 
me noddle to think, Jimmy, how be it, that you can’t 
see the way of it all. It beant twinty years yet, since 
we came same ship out togither, from County Arlone, 
an’ have ye forgot the way of it all at home, Jimmy .? 
Have ye forgot } Were yer eyes so blinded wi’ love 
for Maggie, that* ye knew ye must go, but didn’t look 
why .? An’ whin Maggie kem out, an’ ye married her 
here, did ye niver think why ye weren’t turnin’ the 
3 


34 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


turf o’ the green hills o’ County Arlone, stid o’ wastin’ 
yer days a learnin’ the ways of a land, be it iver so 
good, can niver be dearer than home. I’m afeart, 
dear mon, ye’ve been busyin’ here a makin’ yer nisht, 
while the Laerds have been busyin’, too, a buildin’ 
ladders to reach the eggs and take them as fast as 
they’re laid. An’ have ye forgot scant petatees and 
pork that yer father had for the home, an’ the mutton 
all wint to Liverpool markets to pay the rint It isn’t 
the nod o’ the Queen nor the power of a name makes 
a Laerd ; it’s the power to take the mutton, mon. 
Shure the worsht of us all likes home and is loth to 
lave it ; but, Jimmy, ye lift yer home becase ye were 
med, be the min and the laws as had ye at merrcy ; 
an’ ’tis fer that same that Jahn is pushed out o’ the 
nisht ; an’ the way of it all is plain, but the cure is 
not so aisy, an’ wid all me thinkin’ on’t ’tis yet beyent 
me ken. If I had the laernin’ of some as be, I could 
find a way out of the muddle, I’m thinkin’, for our 
Lord has med us ; no wrong has a right to be ; an’ a 
way be, to right it all.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


35 


CHAPTER V. 

DRIFTING. LOST HIS WAY. WANTED, A CHANCE. “ HELP 
WANTED, MALES. ” 

John had been only twice to New York before in all 
his life, though he had lived little more than three 
hours’ travel by rail away from the great city. Once, 
when a lad, he came down with his father to the 
markets, in a schooner from Scarborough, with a load 
of onions. It was a wonderful sail down the river and 
Sound, and only a day around the Washington Market 
places, and back they went. He had just a glimpse of 
the bustle and dirt along West Street and the docks. And 
again, he went down with an excursion of temperance 
delegates to a convention in old Madison Square. He 
then remained one night and two days. Nearly all 
the delegates there came from country towns, and he 
stopped over night with a resident temperance man, 
who talked little else than about the convention and 
growth of “the cause”; and really, John had just 
been one in a basket of countrymen brought to town, 
and set down for a night and a day — to chatter together 
— and then had gone back in the same dish that 
brought them. But John had glimpses of wonderful 
things, and wonderful ways, with his wondering eyes, 
and went back to wonder in thought, while he picked 
up stones from the stony fields or followed the wob- 
bling harrow as it tore up and leveled the smooth laid 
lands of the plow, on the Sconset farm. 

It was different now. He was alone in the train, 
though the train was full, and he dreamed along in a 
dazed way. Theerrandfor Jimmy was easy enough, and 


36 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


he settled all that in his mind as he rode. But beyond 
that was an open sea for John, with some unseen, un- 
known shore. Whether his haven lay this way or that, 
was a mystery yet to him. If he rowed with a will, he 
might only be rowing to wreck ; who could tell } With 
no shore or star in sight, how could he know what to do .? 
‘‘Whatever your track, you cannot turn back,” go on. 
So he dropped the oars, ran up the sail, and just drifted 
with wind and tide. He slid down in the cushioned seat, 
shoved his knees into the plush-backed seat in front, 
and laid his head back where it rolled and bobbed and 
pounded about on the metal-bound back of his seat, 
until a screw-head caught and jerked out a hair, then 
^e uttered a “gosh,” sat bolt upright, or swayed 
about and got grit in his teeth and smut on his face, 
and saw farms and woods and hills flyby in colors and 
shapes so familiar to him, that it palled on his sight. 
The car trucks went with a ‘ ‘ clack-whack, clack-whack, 
clack-whack,” from rail to rail, and the rattle and roar 
of it all, together with the monotonous and unintelligible 
conversation of people across the aisle and about the 
car, pushed John gently off into the languid stupor 
of railroad sleep. His head fell slowly back onto the 
sharp edge of the window-frame. His chin fell down 
and the dust blew into his open mouth. Only as they 
were “’most to New York,” did he awaken from 
sleep. The engine gave a loud “ toot— toot, toot.” 
John snorted and sprang to his feet. He reached 
for his hat on the floor and felt for the bag he could not 
see, for now it was dark, and now it was light, in the 
Harlem tunnels. He toppled forward and toppled 
backward. He grabbed at the back of the seat in front, 
or he would have fallen out into the aisle. Then he sat 


JUST PLAIN FOLK^. 


37 


down to recall the toot that had awakened him, to rub 
his leg- that was fast asleep, to feel for the crease in 
the back of his head, and to stupidly realize that the 
whistle had aroused him to a sense of shame, discom- 
fort and pain, beyond even the discomfort of so awk- 
ward a pose for sleep. The dismal series of Harlem 
tunnels began to grow tedious, too. It seemed as if 
they were to be forever engaged with the detail of 
arriving. But the end did come at last. He got out 
under the great arched roof of the Grand Central Station, 
moved slowly along with the crowd to the Forty- 
second Street entrance, made his way through the line 
of howling “cabbies” along the curb, and boarding 
a Fourth Avenue car, rode directly down to “Earle’s 
Hotel,” at Canal and Center Streets. It was there he 
should meet the insurance men, and there he would 
live, for the present, at least. 

John Hardhand — countryman John — was “green” 
in the cunning and schemes of “business men,” but 
was thoroughly, ripely schooled in the theory and work 
of legitimate business dealing. Flis four years in Scar- 
borough school had been given to study, and not to 
play. Since that time the financial part of his father’s 
work had all fallen to him. The adjustment of old 
Jimmy’s claim was fairly and honestly effected, and the 
end was all that could have been wished. It was set- 
tled by two o’clock that day. The check was passed. 
He immediately mailed the funds to Jimmy, and then 
sat down to write out an advertisement for insertion 
in The World, and it ran thus : 

“ Wanted. — ^By a man who is willing to work, a chance in a fac- 
tory or at similar employment where one can work his way up, if he 
is earnest and tries. Call on or address, 

“John Hardhand, Room 21, Earle’s Hotel.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


38 

He inquired the way and then with the advertisement 
copy in his pocket walked down Centre Street to the 
“World ’’office. Centre Street is not interesting to a 
man with so much on his mind, but at the lower end 
of the street “ The World” building, surmounted with 
a great gilt dome, towers up in the sky, and John, as he 
walked down the street, had kept his eyes on that. 
When he had passed in his advertisement and paid for 
it, he walked from the “World” office across Park 
Row, sat down on a bench in City Hall Park, and 
looked up at the great buildings of “The Tribune,” 
“The Times” and “The World,” overwhelmed with 
admiration of their magnificent grandeur. City Hall, 
which he saw in his “temperance raid” as a marvel 
too great to be really the work of men, looked squatty, 
now. 

Words had a literal meaning to a man like John, 
to an honest man ; and this tandem of names aroused a 
tandem of thoughts in his mind. “Tribune and Times 
and World,” he said half aloud to himself. “If the 
Tribune would speak the whole truth of the times, to 
the world, would not the world be bettered ? What is 
the truth of the cause that embitters the world of men, 
that breeds hatred and discontent, breeds poverty, 
heartache and want, and is filling the world with 
tramps ? 

A ragged elbow nudged his own, and a hoarse voice 
said drawlingly in his ear : 

“Say, pard, can ye give a poor man a nickel to git 
over the ferry ? I want to git over the ferry. I lost 
my way in the mornin’, an’ then I lost my money, an’ I 
hain’t had nothin’ to eat since yisterday noon, pard ; 
honest, I hain’t.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


■ 39 


Had John lost his way in the morning of life? Was 
he, too, a partner, a “ pard, in the company of tramps ? 
Would his little money go, too ? Would he some day 
be asking for bread, and be gladder for beer? He 
looked at the greasy, frouzy wreck and a score like 
him, who were lolling about, and with pity and fear 
his fingers trembled as he dropped a dime in the out- 
stretched palm and studied the blear-eyed, bloated 
wreck of lost manhood. 

“ Thank ye. Mister,” said the fellow, and he winked 
stupidly to another member of the firm of Tramp & Co., 
to sneak up and try the dodge, but John got up and sadly 
walked back to his hotel home. After the tale of the 
clock, the feverish sleep of the night, the day of 
ride and confusion and change, he was tired and 
needed rest. He wrote to Thetty, and to his brother 
Paul, then went to bed and to sleep. 

Next morning, after breakfast, he walked over to^ 
Broadway, and when he returned his mail began to come 
in. He had altogether thirty-two answers, but though 
he waited about the hotel all day, no one called at 
room 21 to see the man who wanted “a, chance to 
work his way up.” Nine of the letters were from dif- 
ferent employment agencies, each detailing their world- 
wide renown and pointing with pride to the marvel- 
ous record of fortunes they had opened up to thousands 
of men in the past. They would, ‘‘ for a nominal fee, 
enter his name on their books, which are consulted by 
all the great business men of affairs,” who are seeking 
good pantry-boys, pilots, painters, or railroad presi- 
dents. John invested two dollars in one of these 
chances, though he found these agents a seedy and 
scheming lot, and he called at their office occasionally 


40 


JUST FLA IN FOLKS. 


for a month or two, yet nothing came of it but wear of 
shoes and waste of time and clearer perception of those 
disgusting methods of misleading the unwary, that are 
on their face so apparently fraudulent as to insult the 
intelligence, and which in the slang of the period are 
designated as ‘ ‘ fakes. ” 

One reply readj “We can give you a place at the 
lathe, if you are good at the work, a first-class man, 
and the wages we offer suit. Bring reference from 
your last shop. Call before lo a. m. to-morrow at 
No. — Centre Street.” 

He tossed that letter under the table, and another, and 
then another, and others exacting requirements he could 
not meet, and yet others he could not without telling 
a lie, for he “must have had some experience at the 
business” they said. John could not lie, and some 
liar, no doubt, got the position and smuggled his igno- 
rance through in the crowd of other workmen. Thus, 
finally, all the letters but eight went under the table. 
He wrote out the address of each of the eight on a 
card, and next day paced the City of New York from 
Battery Point to Harlem, from river to river, up and 
down, back and forth, to meet these wide-scattered 
hirers of men ; walked until the skin was worn off 
his toes and his stockings were stained with blood. 
Pie studied his own looks, actions and words, as to 
how he should act and talk ; and, through this strained 
unnaturalness, came nearer being a dishonest man than 
he had ever been before. 

These letters were mostly misleading and blind, not 
naming the business at all, or John would have spared 
himself half his wasted tramping. His patience was 
sorely tried, when, after walking from Jackson's Hook to 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


41 


Eleventh Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, he found 
that they only wanted a “sprue boy'' to knock off 
sprues from the iron casting’s, and to handle the cores for 
the moulders in an iron foundry, for which they would 
give him four dollars a week the first year, if he suited. 
At another place in Green Street, near Spring — it was 
clearly a fraud — they wanted a capable man, and they 
would pay him six dolkirs a week. They were manu- 
facturers of Dodo’s patent paper dusters ; dusters made 
of stripped, colored tissue-paper and dowel sticks. 
They were really trying to make a show of business, 
to sell out, over and over again ; and he learned the 
next day that it was continuously advertised under the 
head of “business opportunities,” in one of the great 
daily papers, as “an established and growing manu- 
facturing business, with plant complete and established 
trade for their staple productions. For sale, the half 
interest of a retiring partner ; the other half, not for sale, 
as the junior partner remains to join with the buyer in 
pushing the business to still greater success. Five 
hundred dollars down, balance on easy time.” Each 
of the two partners to this fraud took his turn in retiring, 
as each new victim came in, and returning, as each 
fleeced lamb went out. 

The eighth and last call that John made was at the 
office of the Compressed Oxygen Gas Company in First 

Avenue, near Street. At this factory hydrogen, 

nitrogen, or oxygen gas was manufactured and com- 
pressed, under the Blitz process. It occurred to John 
that he might reasonably hope to work his way rapidly 
up, with oxygen gas, but he did not see how he could rise 
into distinction and wealth by wheeling in coal at a 
dollar and seventy-five cents per day, or even by 


42 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


shoveling it under the retorts ; and he hobbled down 
to his hotel room to bathe his blistered feet, and rest his 
weary limbs and wait, for another day, as it was now 
five o clock of his third day out of a home. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


43 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE TRAMP IN QUEST OF AN OPPORTUNITY. REJOICE ! A 

CHANCE AT LAST. FAILURE. FOURTEENTH STREET. 

MAGDALEN. 

Next morning he sallied forth early with the “ Her- 
ald’’ and “World” in his hand, and a dozen marked 
advertisements, under the headings of “Help wanted, 
males” and “Business opportunities,” and again began 
his tramp, seeking a chance in the world of men. One 
of the notices of business opportunities gave the same 
street and number as that of the Duster Manufacturers 
who advertised yesterday. John was startled with 
a suspicious thought, then remembered that there were 
several sorts of business in the one building, and he 
went again, only to find that it was the same, the very 
same business; but the “other partner” was there, 
who had not seen John, and this partner swelled about 
with lofty indifference to little things, and with the pom- 
pous air of a “successful business man” explained at 
great length to John the fortune that was awaiting him 
in the duster business. The cost was so little, the 
profit so large, the demand so entirely beyond their 
capacity to supply. For a puffy and corpulent man, 
he managed his great corporation well. He made care- 
ful inquiry about John’s finances and former busi- 
ness. “Only a solid and honorable man would do.’’ 
The first five hundred dollars was “of course but a 


44 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


nominal sum/’ it might answer, however, “to start.” 
And he added that it really was not money that they 
needed at all, but “an intelligent, experienced busi- 
ness man,” like John. The money to be paid in 
was simply to show his faith and to guarantee the 
active personal interest of the new partner in the 
business, etc., etc., etc. He found John “peculiarly 
adapted,” he Said, “to take the managing place of the 
retiring partner.” The cheat was so plain and so silly, 
even in the eyes of poor honest John, that he felt his 
intelligence was insulted by it, and his trust in men 
shaken. It really made him feel sick. 

However, John secured a position that day with 
a book concern. Their advertisement was strange 
enough, also, to the uninitiated, for there was not in it 
a word about books, but it read, “Wanted, in a com- 
mercial business, an intelligent, honest man, of good 
address and presence ; no other requirements needed. 
Salary tvvelve dollars a week to begin. Good men in our 
employ are making from thirty to forty dollars a week.” 
It was a canvasser for a subscription book they really 
wanted ; but their advertisement in varying forms, over 
different names, was to be seen in the newspapers 
every day. John paid for his sample-book, and signed 
a contract of agreement, after hastily running it over, 
while his employer leaned over his shoulder, and 
others, about, seemed waiting for John to hurry this 
act. John signed, and went to work. Their instruc- 
tions discouraged him again, for they showed him 
how he must lie and deceive if he wished to succeed; 
and the thought of such success made him sick at 
heart. But he inwardly said, “I shall try, without telb 
ing or acting the lies they advise/’ . 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


45 


He worked so hard, and his good honest face in- 
spired such trust among those to whom he appealed, 
that to the great surprise of his employer at the end 
of a week he had sent in and booked nine new sub- 
scriptions. He stood in the office that night until long 
after six o’clock, the other canvassers and collectors 
all having gone home ; but the manager said not a word 
about pay. And at last J ohn spoke to him ; but without 
uttering a word in reply, his employer smiled con- 
temptibly -as he handed John the contract he had 
signed, and pointed to some lines in very fine type 
printed across the end of the paper, which John now, 
for the first time, read slowly through. “ No salary to 
•be .paid for the first week’s canvassing unless at least 
twelve approved orders are passed in and accepted. 
Orders in weeks that follow, one dollar each if accepted ; 
payable only after first four numbers are delivered and 
paid for.” John now recalled the way in which they 
had deceived him, the cruel ruse they had played on 
him. But they had booked his orders, and now held 
the contracts which he had made for them, with his 
customers. Holding the signed agreement in his 
trembling hand, he stepped up boldly, and confronting 
the manager, said in a hoarse voice, ‘‘Will you at least 
pay me the one dollar each I have faithfully earned 
on those nine orders ? ” 

The manager uttered no word of reply, but laughed 
aloud. (It was so amusing and novel to him, — the 
innocent earnestness of this honest man.) 

A fire of- anger came into John’s face. He silently 
and contemptuously looked the manager in the face 
for a full half minute, until the man began to quail 
under the gaze, then, stepping nearer, he astonished 


46 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


the man with a child-like but powerful flat-handed slap 
in the face that sent him backward against the wall. 
A dangerous look was in John’s eyes. The manager 
dared not move nor utter a word ; but, white as death, 
he kept hisstaring eyes on the countryman, while John 
tore the agreement into shreds, threw the sample-book 
out of the window to the street below, and with another 
look at “bookie,” that made the latter quake — for 
bethought he, too, would be thrown out next, — John 
turned and walked downstairs, and “the -manager” 
drew a long, long breath. 

John Hardhand tramped more than a month in the 
wearisome search for work — but in vain. I am not 
saying it is always so, for newspaper advertisements 
have pointed many a man to a good position, and to 
many a business house brought worthy help. But 
John’s fortunes in that field were certainly bad ; and it 
is in the nature of “things as they are” that it should 
be oftener thus. 

Answering a notice one day, John called at an early 
hour, at seven o’clock ; but even then a score of 
seekers were there ; he joined them and waited an 
hour. When the crowd had doubled, the man they 
were waiting to see came carelessly loitering in. He 
paused a moment and ran his eye over the crowd of 
men ; it fell on the honest, pleading face of poor John. 
A few moments later he beckoned him to a seat inside 
the office rail. As John sat there waiting, three men 
in blouses and overalls came in through the shop door 
at the rear of the office and stood near his chair, 
awaiting their employer’s orders. John heard one of 
these men say in an undertone, “If that feller’s come 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


47 


to crowd Billy out, by working fer less wages, we'll 
make it hotter nor hell for him here. " 

“That we will,” said the other, “an' Billy’s wife 
sick in de bed an’ just after buryin’ de child.” 

“ Draw your chair up here,” said the gentleman to 
John. “ Do you write a good hand .? Can you figure 
and keep accounts .? ” 

“Yes, sir, I can,” said John. 

“ If ten dollars a week will satisfy you to begin, come 
Monday and try for a week ; distribute the work, keep 
tally of work and of time, and make your report to 
me.” 

John’s chance — rejoice ! It has come at last. But 
he thought of Billy’s sick wife, and the unpaid funeral 
bill for the child that was dead, and sat silent for a 
minute or more, with a choking sob in his throat, while 
this new master looked on, in wide-eyed wonder, — 
wonder that John's face did not light up with joy as 
other men’s had done when he had said to them, “You 
may come.” But at last John's voice came to him and 
he said in a whisper, “ No, I feel sure I can't suit here,” 
and rising, walked sadly out. What had just been 
said to John had been plainly heard by the crowd, but 
they had not heard John's reply to the “boss.” Many of 
them had started to go as he passed through their midst, 
but he saw in the faces of those two waiting workmen 
the hate they felt for the man they believed had crowded 
out their fellow-workman. To his knowledge, John 
had never before been hated by mortal man ; and 
again his heart was sick. He heard the manager say 
to the scattering men, ’“Just hold on a bit ; ” and they 
stopped as John turned away. Would somebody get 
Billy's place ? Quite likely, for two dollars less. 


48 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


After a thousand efforts and failures John Hardhand 
began to doubt success. After failure and failure and 
failure he did not expect to succeed. His search became 
a hopeless, self-imposed duty, and so he continued it. 

Reader, do not hastily condemn poor John. Do not 
say with contempt, “Cowardly, — weak.” Think 
carefully first, estimate the enervating wear of failure, 
failure, failure; not “dropping water that will wear a 
stone,” but pound, pound, pound. The sledge-ham- 
mer strokes that will break a rock. Kx^you the excep- 
tional rock that cannot be broken .? 

John was performing an apparently hopeless duty 
and had not much interest in it. He spurred himself 
up in the morning with thoughts of the little done 
yesterday and the much that must be done to-day, and 
promised himself to use every minute in struggling, 
active search. He rushed out at seven — too early ; 
the offices were closed, or if open the man he must see 
was not yet in. He waited; eight: “No more help 
needed at present.” A walk of five or six blocks: “We 
hired a shipping clerk yesterday ; a pity you didn't 
come in.” Now, why did not John get that chance.? 
Some other man did. It was only because John could 
not be in a hundred thousand places at once, that is 
all, which was his only way of surely being in the 
right place at the right time. It was because only one 
of the ten thousand seekers got, or could get that one 
“chance”; and the man who did get it was some 
other John. 

After this experience he walked twenty-five blocks 
before he tried again, the ten-thousandth part of a 
chance was lost, and he dreaded to hear that ham- 
mer’s blow, “No, not to-day,” Which he felt ’was 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


49 

driving him farther into the gloomy stupor of despair. 
He was getting afraid of himself ; but he offered him- 
self once more, and again was refused; then he list- 
lessly walked down the sunny, warm, noisy street and 
hardly swung his hands ; he drooped his shoulders 
and let them hang forward ; tired in body and mind and 
soul. Such hopeless effort, such an aimless end, was 
almost nauseating. He found himself easily diverted, 
quite willing to be diverted; for whatever took his 
mind from himself gave him rest from the anxious strain 
of his life. Anything was a welcome guest of his mind 
that could bring him oblivion of the threatening future 
the dependent, and to him terrible fate that awaited 
him, if his money should all go before he secured em- 
ployment. How frequently drunkards are made that 
way ! 

There was for him exquisite relief in sleep. Life in 
his waking hours was pain. He lay later in bed. He 
awoke with a frightened start, and a sigh of pain, from 
the peace of pleasant dreams, to the pain of an anxious 
troubled life. He was really not a sane man, though 
no one could call him crazed. He said half-aloud, to 
himself, “ Blessed sleep, twin sister of death,’' and he 
thought, what is life, after all, that we should so madly 
fight for it .? And what ' is death, but freedom from 
struggle ; release .? The soul escaped. The frightened, 
fluttering, wire-wounded bird freed ; no longer to 
pound itself sick and sore against the bars of a cruel 
cage. 

Crude pictorial art is so common in this age that we 
are surfeited with it. The fences, walls and bill- 
boards are decorated with artistic work, marvels of 
beautiful lines and harmonic color. He often stood for 
4 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


SO 

hours before the bright lithographed pictures of the 
theater posters, gazing stupidly, in a listless, absent- 
minded way, at the great half-acres of color and curve. 
He thought some of them really good ; and John had 
an artistic sense. They employed the dragging time 
and relieved his harrowing thoughts. He would stop 
if a horse fell down or an axle broke, or to watch the 
lowering of a safe from an upper window, and gaze 
for an hour at such trivial things. 

When the fast-chilling, way-lost wanderer in the 
blizzard storms of the West thinks of the fatal danger 
near and feels himself growing numb, he is startled 
with fear and whips himself into renewed effort of 
activity. Once, when John had for several minutes been 
watching a boy as he tied up a splintered and broken 
wagon-shaft with a string, he came to his senses and 
saw what he had not noticed before, that half a hun- 
dred others, like himself, were idly looking on. He 
was startled, and moved rapidly away, for he recalled 
how, three months before, when he had seen the very 
same incident, as he was bustling about full of hope, 
he had almost angrily said, “Those lazy loafers ought 
to be made to work, or be sent to jail, or be denied food 
until they earn it. ‘ Loaferism and rum are ruining 
the country.''’ He was affrighted as he thought of 
himself, and wondered now how many of those idlers 
belonged, like himself to-day, to the disheartened seekers 
for work. Wondered if some hopeful and hustling man 
had thought as he rushed past this crowd of idlers to- 
day, “ Why don’t they send John off to jail," or out of 
the world, and out of the way } 

At night he would think over the route he had taken 
and the efforts made during the day ; it helped him to 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


51 

maintain a sense of his duty and spurred him on. The 
history of one day, as he recalled it to mind, ran thus : — 
Went down to the Bolt- works to see Mr. H alien ; says 
he can’t do anything- for me now, there’s no business at 
all (the usual phrase for small or unprofitable trade), 
thinks there “ will not be much until fall; not much 
chance” for me until then, and hardly worth while for 
me to call; he will try to “remember John.” From 
Hallen’s he walked up to Fifty-ninth Street and to the 
menagerie in Central Park, where he began to forget 
himself in watching the capers of the well-fed animals. 
Then again the thought of his duty and his own needs 
came back to him. He remembered the fact, and said 
of himself, “This animal must be fed,” and he rushed 
hurriedly off after this “ five-minute look” and walked 
bravely over toward Bolen’s in Third Avenue ; but 
slower as he came nearer, and finally walked by — not 
in, he dreaded it so — and remembered how Bolen was 
vexed and how crossly he had spoken when he called 
there only Saturday last, and had said, “ Needn’t run 
in so often ; will let you know if anything new turns 
up ; ” and then John, with almost a sense of rejoicing, 
recollected that Bolen was usually out of town on 
Tuesdays. That settled his conscience and eased his 
self-accusation, and he hurried off down Third Avenue, 
much as if he had some certain destination, — though 
he had not. He thought of two or three places to go, 
but did not determine which or fix on any one, and by 
this time he had reached Fourteenth Street and the 
crowd that so fascinates every thoughtful person. 

Fourteenth Street ! That panorama of moving 
humanity. That kaleidoscope of all the colors and 
shades of dress and face and soul, which changes. 


52 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


never repeats itself, and is always new. He stopped 
on the corner and watched the crowd surge by. 
Watched, until, in dazed and dreamy thought, he 
saw without seeming to see. Then he startled and 
paled, and almost reeled, for a face went by, and 
a faultless figure so like Thetty Vick’s, his Thetty’s, 
that his heart gave four quick thumps, then skipped 
a beat and again beat on faster than it had done be- 
fore. But no, it was not Thetty, for this one looked 
him full in the face and had walked demurely by. 
Neither was the dress Thetty’s ; it was rich and stylish, 
and had such a modish air. He walked rapidly down 
the avenue past her; he cojld not resist the tempta- 
tion to look again, and he played now the first deceit 
of his life, this man of twenty-nine years, for he 
stopped at a standing showcase of neckwear and pre- 
tended to be looking at ties as he waited for her to 
pass by ; he peered through and around the case at the 
face so like his idol on Sconset farm. And not until 
within arm’s-reach of him did the eyes seem to look up, 
then she quickly lifted her eyes to his and said in a 
voice of sweetest tone, “Hullo, my love!” She 
stopped and stood beside him, pretending to also seek 
ties ; she just touched his arm, and with an air of easy 
freedom began to converse in an undertone and in 
language too obvious to be misunderstood. John had 
not uttered a word, nor did he speak now ; he tried to 
appear not to hear. He stepped between the show 
window and the case and slid away down the avenue. 
When he reached Thirteenth Street corner and turned 
round it out of her sight, he almost ran up the block 
to Fourth Avenue. In this abnormal state of mind, he 
was almost a crazy man. (Men whose thoughts are 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


S3 


turned in toward themselves — whose thoughts for a 
short relief go out to be only again thrust cruelly back — 
for the moment at least, go mad.) 

Was it possible that such a face amd figure, so 
exactly like Thetty Vick’s, could cover a soul so black 
It was like mixing the perfumes of Sconset farm with 
the odors of gutter and gas-pipe trench. Poor John ! 
He had read without thinking of “ Magdalen.” To 
him a woman like this seemed created, not made 
thus. If he had ever thought of such social outcasts at 
all, it was that they were born so. His training and 
nature, his trusted and trusting heart, had taught him, 
with never a thought of pity, to hate such a woman ; 
but how horribly different it seemed when here came 
one in the very image of Thetty ; trading on such 
a face, fixing commercial value on such a figure. With 
the voice of an angel, trailing the sacred word love in 
the dust. Was the soul of such an one black .? No, 
John, not black of heart this woman, this property of 
whoever buys ; but soiled, horribly soiled. And 
this one at least, if you knew the truth, is indeed a 
soiled dove. The helpless victim of a beastly man. 
The even sadder, more pitiable victim, outcast, of an 
unforgiving family, church, society, that has shoved 
her out and kept her out, and has made of her (they 
would have us think) the ^‘terrible example” of dis- 
obedience ; forced or willing disobedience to their 
Pharisaical exactions of hypercritical and ungenuine 
morality and virtue. We should take timely heed, 
and be at least just, lest those whom we ourselves 
make outcasts revenge themselves. Some day, when 
society totters and its foundations are shaken, their op- 
portunity will come. 


54 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


Though Thetty might think it impossible, and John 
might swear it so, yet it really might have been Thetty, 
herself, and not Thetty s image, soiled, — if a brutal 
person and a helpless state and a cursing world had 
made it so ; and just the thought of it was revolutioniz- 
ing John’s mind. It was that which made him run, and 
then made him walk, and then caused him finally to 
stop, and now made him think as he never before had 
thought. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


55 


CHAPTER VII. 

A MIDSUMMER BOARDERs’ FIRST NIGHT. ETTA FOYLe’s DREAM 
IN CHURCH. 

It is little more than a quarter of a mile from the rail- 
road station at Sconset to the house of Joel Vick, but 
there were trunks and luggage to come, the boarders 
expected to ride, and the well-worn path by the road- 
side was dry and dusty, so P'armer Vick with the three- 
seated wagon was down at the station on Monday 
afternoon, awaiting the train. -The locusts were rasp- 
ing the air and the corn-leaves rustled dryly. The sun 
burned down, and the pitch fried out from the knots in 
the platform floor. A hawk sailed high overhead in 
the sky, but never a bird made sound. It was three 
o’clock of this July day when the distant hum of a train 
was heard and it grew to a roar ; then a toot, toot, 
toot, shook the summer air, and the New York train 
swung round the curve, rolled up to the station, and 
stopped. It was a veritable crowd — for a country 
town — that came hurrying off the train, and with baskets 
and bags and fuss and noise were distributed among 
the queer old vehicles awaiting them, and driven in 
flying dust away to their several summering homes. 

Those who had been promised a place at Farmer 
Vick’s were on hand, every one. The wagon was soon 
filled, and y^ some were left, who must walk or wait 
until the farmer should return for the trunks, After the 


56 JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 

all-round greetings, Etta Foyle handed her trunk-check 
to Paul, who was there to look after the baggage, and 
with her small grip-sack and parasol she walked up the 
road alone. She had declined to ride, preferring to 
walk under the shade of the maples in the old 
familiar path so pleasantly well remembered. She 
passed Mr. Vick, nodded and smiled, as he started 
back for the trunks ; and she heard the chattering babel 
of tongues, the laughter and stamping about of the 
noisy lot on the porch and in the house ; their witty 
remarks, frivolous talk and shouts of confusion 
and mirth. She heard jests that were flavored with 
the vinegar and gall of sarcasm. Jokes, that carried 
and but half concealed a sting. But, never mind 
that : the air was pure, the sky was clear, the grass 
was green, and Nature, the Earth, the dear old full- 
bosomed mother of us all, was out in her very best 
dress. She rustled her garments with every passing 
zephyr, and fairly laughed a welcome to Etta I\Iay 
Foyle. So did Mother Vick and Thetty and Maggie 
and all the others, for that matter, boarders and all. Who 
would refuse a welcome to her.? Sure enough, it costs 
a struggle to be good and self-helpful and true, yet what 
a pleasure it is to know that from pauper to prince we 
all respect and love the kind, heroic, persistent and 
true. Etta’s heart fairly swelled with the joy of it all, 
and a great bunch seemed to swell up in her throat. 
She wanted to laugh, but had to cry, and gazed out of 
the window with tears in her eyes. The last of the 
new-comers and their baggage soon arrived. Compli- 
ments flew, for it was quite a loving and lovely set of 
eleven women, four men, a tliirteen-year-old boy and 
a baby, that sat down to the six o’clock supper at 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


57 

“first 


Farmer Vick’s, this “midsummer boarders’” 
night.” 

A little gossipy wrangle, of course, ensued about the 
allotment of rooms. Why could not A have this } Or 
B the other.? And it was “.awfully mean ” to let C 
have that. Too big and barny ; too narrow and small ; 
too many windows ; no light at all. The hot sunn)' 
side, or dreadfully cramped ; or the shady side and 
probably damp. They said more than enough and, 
when all else was said, 

“Well, we’ll have to endure it,” then turned out 
their lamps and turned into bed. But Etta slipped out 
into the kitchen with Maggie, for she was quite at 
home with them. She helped Patience put away the 
dishes, and then she and Thetty went out to the 
“pound-sweet apple tree,” got into the great hammock 
together, and had “a real good visit.” You women 
know what that means, but most of the men do not, 
and I will explain it for them. It is a rehearsal of 
what has passed, and a picturing of things to come ; 
and fraternity, trust and sympathy, when sundered 
hearts have come home together. Of course, before 
the girls had arranged their hair for the night in the 
slant-ceiling attic room, and before Etta’s new gowns 
had been shaken out and discussed, she knew all about 
John and his trials, the old story of “love and wait,” 
of the pitiful struggle John was having, though neither 
of these knew how little of the whole sad truth he had 
written. The farmer’s daughter could trust Etta, and 
for that matter, every one did. She was frequently 
surfeited with sorrowful confidences, though she surely 
had troubles enough of her own. 

A week of delightful days flew by. Etta already be* 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


5S 

gan to toll off the vanishing holidays, counting back- 
ward from the close of her leave of absence. ‘^Only 
eight, ” said she, and then, “Only seven days more,” 
and then, “ Only six. ” 

A quiet, fraternal peace had reigned during the week 
in the boarding-house. But storms were a-brew, 
gossip was increasing, and scandal, that devil-tongued 
monger of mischief poisoned the air with whispers of 
evil she dared not speak aloud. Sunday had come. 
“ The boys ” were up, and the husbands, too ; and the 
road between Rush House and Sconset farms was alive 
with pedestrians, wheelmen and driving parties. The 
Sabbath was less a holy day than holiday. 

Widow Craft was out in a Scarborough drag from the 
Rush House stables with Gertie and Jennie, all in 
the richest outing finery of white admiral caps, wide, 
low-rolling collars and sailor knot ties, blouses, and 
soft, clinging skirts of white India silk, long white 
gloves, and parasols of white brocade with rich silken 
fringe. Their bay cob arched his neck and stepped 
high, with the gingerly pride of a thoroughbred. 
They drove up and down and fluttered about like 
white mud-butterflies around a puddle. Mrs. Ponsby 
was out, and drove up that way with her gay and 
stylish gallant. And Philip Wendt, the ship-broker’s 
son, drove up from “The Rush ’’ in an English cart to 
call on Mrs. Dorrance, and of course took her out for 
a drive. He brought her a message from Dorrance, that 
Watson the clerk was sick, that a mass of unanswered 
correspondence required his Sunday attention, and he 
could not come up until next week. Johnny rebelled 
because he could not go with his mother to ride, and 
got fifty cents for remaining at home, which he did not 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


59 


do, but spent the money for candy and cigarettes down 
at the Sconset station. Ruth was charged not to let 
baby get into the dirt nor the medicine chest, and 
away went the matronly head of the Dorrance family, 
all dimples and smiles and bareness, with her wavy 
brown, loosely-coiled hair caught up with a diamond 
pin ;.with freshly-curled bangs and powder that showed 
a little at her ears and around the base of her pretty, 
proud nose, in company with as blase and loud-looking 
a man as a Gutenburg Race-track could show. She did 
not return again until near twelve that night ; and oh, 
how the gossips .talked. Mr. Tendril and wife lolled 
about in the chairs and read novels and whispered and 
cooed. And, mostly to please Mrs. Vick, Etta rode 
down to the country church in the three-seated wagon, 
with Paul to drive, and with all the Vicks but Thetty 
an 1 “ Pa. ” 

The young minister had a callow look, such a 
made-up, smooth-shaven face, and spoke in meas- 
ured, clerical tones, one pitched low and now another 
pitched high, and a nasal strain in both. His coat, his 
collar and even his trousers were a struggle of clerical 
forms. Cedar evergreens hung about, faded and dusty 
and lorn. There was drowsiness in the swinging rhythm 
of the minister’s tones and in all the air. He preached 
from the text, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the 
Kingdom of Heaven.” “Suffer all things in patience. 
Endure all things for the joy that is set before you. Pa- 
tiently suffer, and wait for your sure reward in the Home 
beyond the skies.'’ And the good old farmers responded 
with a hearty, “ A — a — a — men ! ” Though Etta Foyle, 
“poor, benighted soul,” could not think for the life of 
her, why God had made such a beautiful world for 


6o 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


only the bad to enjoy. She could not see, with her 
“ untrained ■*’ eyes, how ignorance, poverty and want, 
and their inevitable product of evil and crime, could 
elevate man again into the “likeness of God.’* She felt 
sure the good little preacher desired to be sincere ; 
would like to do unto others as he would have others 
do unto him, but she knew that he did not and that he 
could not, while life was a batik ” to live. For in his 
very next breath he spoke of “ the battle of life.” He 
urged them to be “at peace ” with God and the world. 

(She was getting uncontrollably drowsy) '' At peace, 

in the battle of life,” and her eyelids went down ; 

then she roused a little as a roistering party went 
by. And her thoughts were again getting confused 
when a robin called for its mate, and she wondered if 
she had a mate somewhere, needing and calling for her. 
She thought of the love of poor struggling John for the 
hope-fed farmer girl ; and of Thetty’s trusting faith. 
She thought of the comforting power of a father’s love, 
which, alas ! she had never known. And then of the 
Heavenly Fathers love (amid pleasant -thoughts her 
heart sang), of His love for every one. Then she 
thought of the strife of men, and the battle to live, and 
knew in her heart of hearts that it was not God’s plan, 
but the errors of man ; and that He never purposed it 
so, — a torture of pain, for a heavenly gain ; nor had 
made it a curse to bq blest. The preaching minister's 
monotone seemed to float about in the musty air. 
She heard the hum of insects and the twitter of birds 
outside ; — the loo-loo-loo of a cow on a pasture hill, 
and in a dim, dim way, heard the preacher say : 

“You may trust Him ; for as you sang in your 
earlier praise. He will guide you with His eye 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


6i 


Then Etta, so weak and weary, fell fast asleep and 
dreamed. (It is said that in dreams the mind is in part 
awake and is in part impressed and controlled by its 
surroundings.) The last glimpse of her eyes, awake, 
had fallen on a trefoil oriel window of tinted glass ; blue, 
and milky-white, and pink, in the gable above the 
pulpit, high over the preacher’s head. And her sleep- 
ing eyes looked on in a dream, as the oriel widened and 
brightened, was opalescent with the light of love, and 
became a watchful, tireless eye ; (the service goes on) 
“ the Eye that never sleeps.” The depth of its pitying 
sorrow was sad and the depth of its love so sweet. 
And beneath it she saw a world of men, with warring 
hands in strife. And heard women’s groans, and 
children’s moans, (during \he responses. Amen) and a 
terrible ‘ ‘ battle of life. ” And over it all, there sounded 
the call (the hymn announced) of a loving Father’s 
voice, (during the reading of the hymn) “Look, for 
The Way I have made for you.” 

(While the hymn is being read :) 

“ Look for The Way I have made for you, 

And rejoice. My Children, rejoice! 

The wrong and the cure, is an open book, 

If you’ll look, My Children, look. 

O, pity the blind, and led of the blind. 

As they wallow about in the ditch 

While the bounty I’ve laid in the World I’ve made 

For you, is rich, so rich.” 

(During the prelude played by the organist :) 

And then, for a moment, a holy calm and a peaceful sense of 
rest ; 

Then, the spheres of the Universe sounded a Psalm 
Of “ the way ” for the World to be blest. 


62 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


And the tones of an organ, great and grand, 

Shook the air and the sea and the land ; 

Trembled the stars, in the vaulted Heaven, 

With the harmonies true, which God has given, 

“ O, listen. My Children, and look.” 

(The singing of the hymn ;) 

Then a cadence of Angels, in minor tone, 

Chanted “ the way,” there is but one, 

“Be just! Be just! Be just!” 

(During the long closing prayer :) 

“Are ye not children of mine.’ ” saith the Lord, 

“ Then read from the law of Worlds, my word. 

Do I cast off to starve, a crippled son } 

No place at My board for a foolish one ? 

Could I offer to greedy and cunning, a prize. 

And the trusting and honest and earnest, despise ? 

The tempted and fallen, sick and sore 
I forgive, and I plead to them, ‘ Sin no more.’ 

Princess or pauper, to Me are one ; 

Are not you My daughter, and you My son ? 

Because one must hobble and one may run. 

Do I offer the prize to the stronger one ? 

You, greedy and strong, how dare you be rough ? 

My bounty is plenty and more than enough. 

Why scramble and grab in a blind, mad scare ? 

Would you plunder the table, and turn down the chairs? 
And to hungry brothers, deny a su}), 

‘Till they payj/o/^, a price, to turn them up? 

There’s a seat and a feast for every one. 

For you, My daughter, and for you. My son.” 

(During the pronouncing of the benediction :) 

You may see “ the way,” if you will, and trust. 

But naught will avail, except ye be just. 

The wrong, and the cure, is an open book, 

I plead with you, children, look ! Do look ! 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. ' 63 

(During- the rustle of dresses, as the congregation 
rises and moves out of the church :) 

Then, a rustling sound of the chanter’s scrolls, 

And a moving air, as of passing souls, 

As the pitying, “ Sleepless Eye” looks on. 

And Etta awakened with the rustling of dresses, and 
the moving about of the people, for the service was 
closed. She arose from her seat and moved out of the 
pew behind Paul ; out of the churchy smell into the 
sweetness of Nature’s gifts, under a summer sky. But 
the eye of her mind still saw the look of pitying love 
that shone from the oriel window, with promise of 
dawn, from above. Dawn of a better day, when life 
shall not be a fight ; when brother shall cherish brother, 
and right shall be known to be right. 

Ah, that sermon had given her rest. “He giveth 
His beloved rest.” 


64 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


CHAPTER VUI 

PAUL. A CHARACTER STUDY. 

Shortly after “ the folks arrived home from church, 
they had luncheon ; just Mrs. Vick, Thetty, Patience, 
Maggie and Etta Foyle. The twins, Candace and Trys, 
had gone to Sunday School. Mr. Vick was at table, so 
also was Paul Ilardhand. Paul was one of “the 
hands ’’ at Mr. Vick's, at twenty dollars a month and 
board. Now that the house was full of boarders, he 
slept at his own home. Johnny Dorrance was 
at the railroad station, telling “ big city ” yarns to the 
wide-eyed little country boys, and was swelling about 
with “ big boy ” swagger and bluff, smoking cigarettes. 
The boarders, except Etta Foyle, were all away driving 
or cycling or walking over the hills. This smaller 
number at table made a kindly and cosy set, quite 
enjoyable, by contrast with the confusion and unhome- 
like meals of the week just past. Now there was 
more room, more freedom, and they could be natural. 

There was talk about sermons. 

And talk about hops ; 

Talk about bonnets, and onion crops, 

Chat about various girls and their beaux. 

And of wonderful bargains down at the stores. 

Seldom did Mr. Vick or Paul have a chance to slip in 
a word, yet Paul's tell-tale face showed that he fol- 
lowed and relished the conversation as keenly as he 


JUST TLAIN FOLKS. 65 

relished his meal. Paul was a capital audience. It 
is a rare virtue — he listened well, and you knew it, too, 
for his face lighted up or was sad, or laughed, or looked 
thoughtful, or frowned, or was swept over with lines 
of a pitying, sympathetic earnestness, though he made 
no sound. Indeed he had a wonderful face. The play of 
thought and emotion over it was almost fascinating. 
If one watched him very closely, however, he colored 
with embarrassment, and so the observer felt inclined 
to glance at him quickly, then look away, so as to 
catch in his face the effect and reflection of what had 
been uttered. He had an active mind, but suffered with 
a restraining timidity, a strained self-consciousness. 
He was born afraid of himself. We frequently meet, 
among our fellows, persons with rich, profound, men- 
tal resources, wrapped about with the selfishness of 
silence. Such majestic strength, wasted, may well 
excite our pity, but it does not command our respect, 
and the world profits little by such lives. Only a 
spiritual or intellectual cataclysm suffices to bring such 
a person out from himself; then he becomes great. 
The unfortunate eccentricity affects all the details of 
his life. If, for instance, Paul, after silently culling 
among “womanly wares,'’ should at last find a 
woman who embodied his exacting ideal, he would fall 
down and worship her ; worship from afar, not daring 
to approach, and would humiliate and belittle himself, 
with his mental comparison. If the prize, undemanded 
by him, was caught away by another, he would either 
go down into the agony of despair and destroy his own 
life — while none but himself would ever know why — or 
he would rise up out of the fiery ordeal, cleansed of the 
dross of his self-consideration, filled with the broadest 
5 


66 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


humanitarianism, the clearest perception of the true 
purposes of life, and make a grand man. The gold of 
such a character is imprisoned as in quartz rock ; it 
must be crushed and pass through the fire, or it will 
yield nothing. He was afraid. Afraid some one 
would say, or perhaps only think, his gold was bogus 
coin. He listened, looked, thought, read, took, all 
things in, gave very little out. Selfishness and pride 
made him their prisoner, not only robbed him of liberty, 
but directed his acts and conversation. He was 
keenly conscious of his ability and powers, but unwill- 
ing to employ them, lest he be misunderstood, ma- 
ligned, and his pride be humiliated. No purification 
of such an one but by fire. While nuggets of gold may 
be picked up in the loose sand, we refuse to pound 
quartz rock for them. Such characters as Paul Hard- 
hand are very generally ignored by a busy world. It 
costs too much effort to bring them out. Yet, when an 
earthquake fate overtakes them and rends the rock, the 
very finest of gold comes forth, and they rise into the 
grandest manhood. 

During the table talk Mr. Vick made a humorous shot 
at the three bachelor brothers, and called Pauls the most 
hopeless case. Paul looked furtively up from his plate, 
smiled, looked down, and took another spoonful o-f 
creamed strawberries. Then good Mrs. Vick, in a ban- 
tering tone, said, “The last may be first and the first 
may be last,” — referring to Proctor, John and Paul. 
“Who knows?” And she .continued, “ I don’t think 
Paul really knew himself what he was doing, but I saw 
him yesterday evening down at Munson’s store, with 
most attentive eyes and ears, watching the pretty face 
and drinking in the sparkling witticisms of that cute 


JUST TLA /AT FOLKS. 


67 

little Katie McAuliffe. I tell you, girls, waters are 
deep that run so still ; better keep your eyes on Paul. ’’ 
Paul looked up again, arched his eyebrows a little, 
smiled, and responded facetiously, “That’s all right.” 

Etta Foyle looked at him and thought — not aloud, if 
you please, O, no, — “What a funny man he is. He has 
an intelligent face, too. I had hardly noticed it before. It 
is almost fascinating, but it has a sort of hypnotic charm 
— dangerous. I don’t like it. I should benfraid of such 
a man. When he looks at one he looks so quickly, pene- 
tratingly ; you feel that he is entirely too conscious of 
all that he has seen and heard, and even more than 
that, his eyes seem to say, ‘ I know what you think, 
all you think, and I also know how very little of what 
you think )mu will speak.’” 

True enough, it was impossible for a girl of that trustful 
frankness, characterizing Etta Foyle, to like such a man. 
Thetty, in her outspoken way, and her willingness to 
chide him by the invidious comparison made the remark, 
“ John and Paul are not the least bit alike.” 

Paul once more looked up quickly this time and 
seemed to note the look of thankful exultation in 
Thetty’s face. Just a trace of a frown and a sad look 
came over his countenance, which Thetty noticed, and 
with that natural outgoing pity, impossible for her to 
deny even to a wounded reptile, she said, reassuringly, 
“ Never mind, Paul, ‘ though the herd shall forsake 
thee, thy home is still here.’ ” 

•They all laughed at the puny joke, and arose from 
the table as Mr. Vick remarked, 

“Paul is afraid he won’t say the right thing, and so 
he ‘ says nothing and saws wood.’ ” Farmer Vick ha4 
hit that nail precisely on the head, 


68 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


Shortly after three o’clock, the boarders, one after 
another, began to come in and required table attentions. 
They chatted and moved about, and the all-round gos- 
sip began. It continued and made more than enough 
both in quantity and quality to fill the bad chapter of a 
book. But life has its bad chapters, and it is an unjust 
picture that neglects a truth. What one sees and feels 
and knows, one must believe, even though he would 
rather not. Let us paint the picture truly ; or throw 
down the brush. 


JUST FLAIN FOLKS. 


69 


CHAPTER IX. 

BUTTERFLIES. TWO STORM-CENTERS OF A TEMPEST. 

Johnny Dorrance, hungry, ill-tempered, shouting, and 
reeking with the smell of cigarettes, came in from his 
sensational demonstration down at the railroad station. 
Ruth with the baby-wagon and its cargo arrived. 
The Widow Craft and her chickens came flying up the 
road ; came flying down from their lofty perch on the 
cart ; and came flying into the house with most mar- 
velous self-satisfaction. The fat little widow seemed 
quite ready to flap her wings and crow, she was so 
swelled with pride ; so proud was she of having at- . 
tracted the public attention — a success which others had 
sought and in which she had attained superiority. She 
did not exactly crow, though she uttered sounds as 
like it as hens commonly do when they attempt to crow, 
and then seem to remember that they are not the crow- 
ing bird. They make an unnatural sound, amusingly 
absurd. One of the chickens, however, Gertie, did 
whistle a little, happily, as she came up the path, but 
was stopped short by a sharp look from her mother. 
An unuttered suggestion of the fate awaiting “whis- 
tling girls and crowing hens.” Gertie’s whistle was 
not really a whistle of contempt for girls less fa- 
vored than herself. That is to her credit. But it 
was, nevertheless, an omen of a very “bad end.” 
She whistled because she could not help it. She could 


70 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


not help it because she was so happy. She was so 
happy because Mr. Wendt, the brokers son, had 
noticed, with enthusiastic interest, the Craft turn-out. 
He had driven repeatedly past them, raised his hat 
with the sweetest politeness, and made no effort to 
conceal his admiration of Gertie, herself. She really 
was a pretty, soft little pin k-and- white creature, with 
blue-gray eyes and a wonderfully pretty mouth. Lips 
with curves like Cupid’s bows, and rosy red, but too 
full — quite too full — it was their only fault. Mr. 
Wendt had gazed at Gertie as they passed for the 
fifth and last time, with a hungering -look, as a cat 
might look at a canary. He arched his eyebrows 
and smiled so captivatingly that Gertie’s little heart 
fluttered ; and how could she help smiling back her 
thankfulness ? Had they not come out and driven up 
and down to be admired ? If not for that, then why all 
this trouble of dress and parade ? If one gains what 
is sought, shall they not rejoice? Poor little Gertie; 
she noticed, too, as they passed this fifth time, that Mrs. 
Dorrance had put off her smiles, and tljat the merry 
dimples had drawn out into lines almost like a frown. 
Gertie looked back after they had passed, and saw 
Mrs. Dorrance, with very serious face turned toward 
Mr. Wendt, earnestly addressing him. They did not 
pass Gertie and her party again. 

' Six o’clock had come. Supper was waiting, and 
Mrs. Dorrance had not returned. Johnny was bump- 
tious, commanding and disagreeable. The baby was 
cross and fretty. Ruth looked weary, worried and dis- 
pirited. The serenity of the day was rapidly clouding 
up with complications. Ther^ were real clouds in the 
gky, too, dark and threatening, and away off sounds 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


71 


of thunder. The air was still, as in dread suspense. 
Nature held her breath, and even the winking leaves of 
the trees had ceased to move. 

Mr. and Mrs. Tendril came hurrying in with their 
hands full of field-daisies, cat-tails and calamus root. 
Tendril, the boy-husband, looked weary. His silk socks 
and patent leather low shoes were soiled with marsh 
mud. One knee of his white flannel trousers bore the 
green marks of grass stain. Mrs. Tendril, the girl-wife, 
looked cross and pouty. Her white-flannel outing skirt 
was stuck full of pitchfork burrs, and disfigured with 
yellow-weed dust. 

Clouds rolled silently up and over each other, black, 
gray and brazen green. Threatening little circles of dust 
swirled round in the road. Then all things seemed to 
wait. Now came a rushing roar of wind. The air was 
filled with dust. A blind of the parlor window flew round 
and shut with a frightening crash. Two or three mon- 
strous drops of rain splashed down onto the floor of the 
porch, as if the storm-devil had spat before doubling up 
his fists to knock things about. The hens sprang from 
their fluttering wallow in the dust of the road and with 
tails bent downward, loped across the door-yard to 
their coop. One hen, of the household brood, had not 
reached home yet, however, and her littlest chicken, 
here in the coop, was squawking as if it were being 
swung about by the leg. Ruth took it off upstairs to 
its roost, and Johnny followed. The rain came down 
in torrents ; then, a blinding flash, an instant of the 
blackest darkness, and a thundering crash. Tendril 
wife screamed, trembled and clung firmly to Tendril 
husband. 

Mrs. Craft cried, “O my! wasn't that terrible?” 


72 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


She was very pale, and she joined her party as they 
hurried off up to their rooms, the Tendrils following. 

Thetty Vick said, with enthusiasm, “ O, wasn’t that 
grand ? ” as Etta smiled, and took Thetty’s hand. 

Mr. Vick anxiously remarked to his wife, “ Ma, I’m 
afraid Mrs. Dorrance will get drenched to her very 
skin.” 

To which suggestion Patience added, “And her skin 
won’t look half so pretty after it’s drenched.” 

The twins, in the corner, giggled, and their mother 
reprovingly said, “ Patience, Patience,” and looked 
seriously as she added, “ I hope no harm will befall her. 
She is in very great danger. It’s a terrible time to be 
out, and without an umberel. ” 

And Paul, even Paul, made this cynical comment, “ I 
hope they won’t be ‘ called in.’ They are a precious 
pair for the Lord when He comes to gather His jewels.” 

Every one seemed to regret what Paul had said, and 
he was again confirmed in his judgment, that it was 
better to say nothing. Outside, it flashed, darkened 
and crashed again. Then all kept still and listened and 
looked. It rained continuously \intil nine o’clock, 
stopped for a few minutes, when it began again in a driz- 
zling way: omen of an all-night rain. One after another, 
each went off to bed but Mother Vick. She did not re- 
tire but sat awaiting Mrs. Dorrance, when she should 
come in, and as Mrs. Vick said, to “give her a cup of 
tea, poor soul.” 

This storm was, also, a moving force in quite another 
scene. On Bedford Hill, fifteen miles away, the cool 
breeze of an almost mountain air had swayed and 
played with the great branched forest trees of the wood- 
crowned hill. A rugged road wound its way up the 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


73 


eastern slope, with dense woods and underbrush at 
either side. A somewhat level plateau crowned the hill, 
and the road went straight across the top and wound 
its way down the western side. A high-seat English 
“ village-cart ” came slowly up the eastern approach 
to the little clearing on the hilltop. The perspiring 
horse leisurely trotted a little way along the level of the 
plateau. The driver drew up to the roadside, hitched his 
horse to a sapling tree and assisted a middle-aged lady 
out of the cart and over the fence. They laughed and 
chatted as they worked their way through underbrush 
and forest, to a projecting rock, a quarter mile away on 
the hillside, that fronted and overlooked the beautiful 
valley below. The gentleman threw his light overcoat 
onto the rock, and the two sat down upon it side by 
side, with their feet hanging over the edge of the 

projecting rock and just touching the tops of the 

sumach bushes below it. In admiration of the beau- 
tiful scene, in gossip, nonsense, wit and pleasantry, 
they chatted ; and the time rolled on. Back of the 
sitting couple were mighty hemlocks, maples, and the 
stillness of the forest. In front, an open sky. From a 

rather free fraternity, they drifted into conversation 

about the marriage state ; its fettering force and its ex- 
actions. The humdrum character of some husbands 
was referred to. The tedious characteristics of a certain 
New York business man were discussed. And the 
criticised person was none other than the husband of 
this delectable lady. To all wifely hardships, restric- 
tions and cause of complaint, this gentleman, this most 
excellent friend, lent willing ear and tenderest sym- 
pathy. He was such a kind and almost affectionate 
confidant. The lady was profuse in expressions of her 


74 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


admiration for men of life and stir and social ambition. 
Men who had some fun in their composition. And 
she looked so bewitchingly into the eyes of this man, 
and was radiant with the satisfaction which the con- 
quest of his heart gave her. She read victory in the 
evident admiration of her, which shone from his eyes. 
What a delicious morsel is victory, when we forget 
the cost ! His arm stole gently round her, he was pro- 
fuse with expressions of hearty pity for her dwarfed 
life, her fettered soul. The encircling arm pressed her 
closer, to express, as words could not, his admiration of 
her heroic patience, his sympathy for her imprisoned 
life. Sitting beside her, he gently, with his freed 
hand, drew her head over onto his shoulder. She 
turned her protesting face toward his, and was about 
to speak in remonstrance ; he quickly closed her mouth 
with a kiss. One rational thought came to her like a 
flash. The thought of what she was and where she 
was. She sprang to her feet. Over her face came a 
maddening play of mixed emotions, anger and shame 
predominating. She stepped away and stood gazing 
at him hardly a second, when earth and air rebuked 
them both. The great storm had rolled up from the 
west, unnoticed, hidden by the hill and the great forest 
behind them. Black and threatening, the storm-cloud 
had rolled over them, and like a lid of darkness was 
rapidly closing down over the great blue eye of a sum- 
mer sky. A deep-drawn sigh of wind in the tree- 
tops she heard, as she sprang to her feet, and with 
that thought, that instant look which she gave him, 
came a burning flash from the heavens, a crash, and then 
darkness. And again and again, with hardly an in- 
stant of interval between them. With the roar of a 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


75 


tempest, the rain came down in swashing torrents. The 
great trees threshed the air with swinging branches and 
bent their great bodies forward low, as if to thresh the 
earth with blows of punishment. The frightened couple 
were dashed about and nearly thrown off the bluff. 
He caught her hand and they struggled through the 
woods beneath the crackling trees and falling branches, 
toward the road of safety and the vehicle they had 
left an hour before. As they neared the road there 
came a flash and crash together ; blind darkness ; the 
earth shook and trembled ; sight came back to them ; 
— but a few rods before them the top and branches of 
a great forked elm lay strewn about, and there was 
left standing of what a moment before w.as lofty and 
beautiful only a barked, stripped, naked, splintered 
body. Only a wreck. Dignity, grandeur, verdure, 
beauty, all had gone down. Only a dying remnant 
was there ; a sight to touch our pity. Minnie Dorrance 
fell with the shock, and swooned with fright. Quickly 
struggling to her feet, she saw Philip Wendt running 
some rods ahead, in wild haste, toward the cart. He 
saw her rise, fall and rise again, then he ran back, 
grasped her arm, carried or dragged her to the vehicle, 
lifted her in, and drove away toward Sconset. The 
mountain storm rushed on after and over them with the 
pelting punishment of the elements. 

About half-past eleven that night, this same cart and 
its cargo came dashing up the roadway in the dark- 
ness, and stopped at the .gate of Farmer Vick s home, 
hlrs. Vick hastened to the door with a lighted lamp. 
Philip Wendt sprang out of the cart, helped- out the 
limp, wet, bedraggled, fat lady, walked to the door 
with her in the light of Mrs. Vick’s lamp, bade her good- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


76 

night, bowed to Mrs. Vick, hurried back to the cart and 
drove off into the darkness. 

’ Mrs. Dorrance literally tumbled into the nearest chair 
in a most demoralized state of mind and body. 

“ You poor, unfortunate woman,’' said the good, 
mother-hearted Mrs. Vick. “You are just soaked 
through and through.” 

“Yes, I am,” Mrs. Dorrance replied, sharply, “ and I 
know I shall be down sick for it. ” 

“Was there no shelter for you .? No chance of escape 
from the storm ? ” asked Mrs. Vick. 

“No ; not until we had driven a mile in the rain, 
then we drove under an open shed and sat there in the 
cart for nearlj- an hour. Then the rain ceased and we 
started on ; but it soon began again, in a drizzling 
way, and just as we neared an Irishman sshanty, a half 
mile or more back towards Scarborough, near the rail- 
road, it poured again. He saw a light in the house, 
hitched the horse, and we went in and waited there until 
the storm, just now, diminished a little.” 

“Why, my dear woman, where were you when the 
storm came on .? ” asked Mrs. Vick. 

“We were away over on Bedford Hill, when the 
storm broke upon us. I had no idea the distance was 
so great. We had walked from the roadway away over 
through the woods and bushes, to Long Look Rock. 
While we sat there enjoying the landscape and chat- 
ting for an hour or so, the storm crept up behind us, and 
like an army of furies caught us up. We were swung 
round and dashed to the ground repeatedly, he (she 
did not speak his name now) caught my hand and we 
struggled through the tempest and falling branches of 
the woods, toward the roadway. At a terrible moment, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


77 


a lightning’ flash shocked me. Frightened, I swooned 
and fell. He ran and left me. He would have for- 
saken me, there, but that I rose again. He saw my 
eyes were on him. Then he came back, dragged me 
to the cart, and shoving me in, drove off. The instant 
hatred of that brute which possessed me drove me 
almost wild. I wanted to shriek in his face ‘ Villain ! 
coward ! ’ but I dared not. I- believe he would have 
left me there alone, alive or dead. Disgust and horror 
at the revelation of that person’s selfish character 
sickens me. I am alive, and here. Thank Provi- 
dence, for a tempest that saved me from falling into 
the damning power of that creature. The power he 
might have had on my life. — Where is Johnny.? ” 

‘ ‘ In bed, ” answered Mrs. Vick, ‘ ‘ and Ruth and baby, 
also, hours ago. Get off your wet clothing this instant. 
Drink this hot tea, poor creature.” 

“ What will these people think of me .? ” whimpered 
Mrs. Dorrance. 

And she burst into tears, then drank her tea, looked 
into Ruth’s room on her way to her own, gazed for a 
minute on the sleeping face of her girl babe on the 
nurse’s arm, burst into tears again, went to her own 
room and cried herself to sleep. 


78 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER X. 

CHARACTER STUDIES. SOME QUEER BIRDS. A TAXIDERMIST. 

The castle of Bartholomew McAuliffe with the sun- 
light on it, and the dear old funny face outside the door, 
were embodied fun and good-humor ; but in darkness 
and storm, water-soaked and dripping, its humor was 
very grim. 

That night of the terrible storm, two gulls, threshed 
with the tempest, driven with the storm, soaked, and 
with feathers rumpled, dashed into the reefed sails, 
dropped down onto the deck, and fluttered into the 
cabin of an old stranded hulk, the saved wreckage of a 
well-built ship that had been cast up, beached, on an 
unused bit of a foreign shore, and permitted to lie 
there peacefully ; secure in its harmless awkwardness. 
There are a few such hulks to be found along the 
coast border of organized society. The commander of 
this stranded craft had no papers to prove his right to 
land anywhere. But here, he was, old Bat McAuliffe, 
Irishman, foreigner, among the native-born of America, 
on “ their land,’’ and they had not driven him off. He 
treated them pleasantly. They did not need the old 
beach. He amused them, and so they let him lie where 
he had stranded. The nearest approach to squatter 
sovereignty that this republic has so far had to show. 
If the devil is a land animal, then this old hulk lay be- 
tween the devil and the deep sea. The commander of 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 79 

the craft had no rights on land and no power to go to 
sea. 

All sorts of birds blown seaward with storms off land, 
or blown landward exhausted with tempests off the sea, 
dropped onto the deck of his craft and found there a pres- 
ent salvation and a haven. Old Bat McAuliffe, by very 
force of circumstances and by virtue of an investigating 
and philosophizing tendency of mind, became deeply 
interested in the study of the exceedingly human birds 
that fell onto his deck. Quite an ornithologist, as it 
were — a sort of mental taxidermist as well. He had 
stuffed many rare specimens and set them up in his 
memory, to further study and ponder over, while he 
smoked his comically short pipe. 

There were birds of song and birds of prey. Human 
penguins — great, clownish birds that tumbled and 
waddled, and tried only to save themselves. Eagles — 
so very dignified, that flew and alighted high, com- 
manded respect, had ugly looking beaks and talons, 
with which they tore the flesh of other creatures ; other 
creatures which were “intended” for eagles’ food. It 
was so unaccountable to the mind of old Bartholomew, 
why all the other creatures treated this beaked, talon ed 
highwayman of the air as if he were ‘ ‘ the king of birds,” 
and seemed to think reverence and obedience and fear 
of him a duty. He was really a foolish bird, a club 
would end his career, or, as kindlier cure,- a little cord of 
justice would make of him a staring, wondering pris- 
oner; and yet, all skulked or bowed down or shrieked 
surrender when he alighted in the rigging, folded his 
wflngs, balanced himself clumsily, turned his head a 
little to one side, and looked down on the other birds. 
The old philosopher saw harmless, frightened little 


8o 


JUST FLA IN FOLKS. 


birds run and hide for fear of this ‘‘king- of birds” 
and his miserable screech ; and he heard parrots in 
mindless mimicry repeating this screech over and over 
again, until the whole bird-family were frightened into 
helplessness, and ready, as a means of escape, to give 
up in surrender the flesh of some, if only others might 
be permitted to live. 

Mr. McAuliffe was amused by the great wise-look- 
ing eyes of the owl, who gets credit for wisdom by 
simply looking wise, and does nothing, but, with much 
“fuss and feathers,” catch a mouse ; says nothing ex- 
cept to utter a senseless, solemn “ Whoot-toot-to 
whoot, ” which again is mistaken for wisdom, because 
he wise and is called wise, and so frightens more 
sensible birds with his owlish, solemn appearance of 
profound thinking. Yet he neither sees nor does any- 
thing in the light of day and truth, but sleeps. 

Old Bat studied the cawing crows and the vultures 
that follow in the wake of ruin to feed upon the car- 
casses, half torn and cast aside by murderous birds. 
Those -crows on the fence and in the tree-tops forever 
cawing, “Let well enough alone, I am quite satisfied 
with conditions as they are.” 

With heart of pity, and love of the natural and true, 
old Bat loved and helped to freedom, as far as he could, 
all the larks and birds of song. He would have freed 
them all, if he could; but poor unfortunate, well-inten- 
tioned mortal, he did not know how to release them, 
though he knew very well that so many were captives 
and caged. 

Here comes a pair from the mountain storm — vulture 
and crow. The rain was pouring. The dog-cart 
rolled up before the door, and before the McAuliffes 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


8i 


could cry, “Stand from under,” Mrs. Dorrance came 
running and fluttering into the cabin with petticoats up 
to her knees, and a great wet, swishing tail of silks and 
lace and embroidered muslin, swinging and dripping 
water like an abandoned rudder. Philip Wendt came 
rapidly after her, but halted a moment at the door 
to look back after the horse and up at the tempestuous 
sky, as Mrs. McAuliffe offered Mrs. Dorrance a chair. 
Then he turned and, seeing Katie, made bluff and 
clumsy apology for their lude entrance and accepted 
the chair she proffered him.” 

“Well, well, me good leddie,” said old Bat to Mrs. 
Dorrance, “ ’tis to call the priesht to shrive the sowl o’ 
the dyin’, or to ask the priesht to marry the livin’, that 
colled ye out in the shtorum, nothin’ less. An’ I’m 
glad to give shelter to ye, whether ’tis wan or the other 
or nayther. That the shtorum is theyer and the shelter 
is here is agscuse enough, without other worrud. 
Honora, old ’ooman, set on a bite fer the gintleman 
and his wife.'’ And old Bat looked inquiringly into 
the faces of his guests. 

“No, no, thank you, we are not at all hungry; 
thank you, thank you, we only wish to wait a moment 
until the storm lessens a little,” said Mrs. Dorrance. 

“Sure ye are very welcome if ye are a-hungered, an’ 
faith, ’tis little trouble to set it on again fer ye, such as 
there be.” 

Katie McAuliffe, with the easy grace of one more 
accustomed to life’s refinements, appealed to Mrs. 
Dorrance, and in fascinating tone made proffer of 
hospitality. “ ’Tis very, very little trouble, I have but 
just now set away the food.” 

To which Mrs Dorrance replied, “Thank you, my 

6 


82 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


dear girl, I really could not eat at all. Fright and the 
wetting and anxiety have taken all appetite away, and 
we have but a little way farther to go ; up to Mr. Vick’s 
on the Sconset road.” 

“Ah,” said Katie, “then you are boarding there, I 
presume .? Or a relative, perhaps } ” 

“Only a boarder. We have been out for a little 
drive, and were caught in the tempest.” 

‘ ‘ Sure, missuz,” inquired the host, ‘ ‘ woan’t ye have a 
cup o’ tay .? and yer husband’' (she started), “ yer son 
(she looked pained). “Ah, yarra, no ; beg yer pardon, 
ye’re too young dresshed an’ young lukin’ fer that ; — yer 
frind, — yer gintleman frind. ” She looked with an 
almost frightened face at the little old man, as 
at a witch of penetrating wisdom who had read her 
whole story ; and she almost trembled. “ Won’t yere 
frind have a cup of warrum tay to kill the cauld he’ll 
be likely to get from tlie wettin’, or a drop of sperrits, 
may be ? ” And he looked with a funny twinkle from 
the corner of his eye at Mrs. Dorrance, as he jumped 
up from his seat and ran to a closet for a little flat 
bottle. He brought it, together with a little toy tum- 
bler, which had one time been Katie’s “Christmas,” 
and . handed both to Philip Wendt, with the remark, 
“I’m not overmuch a drinkin mon, meself, tray ten an 
bein’ trayted agin fer de silly fashin of it, but if ye 
were Father Mathew himself, in the state ye are. I’d 
offer ye a drop to mix wid the overmuch cold wather ye 
have, to give it a cheerier flavor an’ to drive off the evil 
sperrits that fly about in sich weather as this. Help 
yerself, mon.” 

And Philip Wendt did so. He filled the little tum- 
bler and drained it off ; filled and drained it again, 


JUST TLA IN FOLKS. 


83 

and again, until there was barely a gill left to keep the 
bottle wet. Old Bat never moved a muscle, nor 
showed the least regret for having offered the bottle, 
nor did he feel any. It was not his nature to do so, 
though the bottle was quite sufficient for his own 
wants for an entire year. He smiled to see with 
what a greedy relish the man drank. jMrs. Dorrance 
seemed shamed by the act. Katie, who was brushing 
the crumbs froni the table, had her back toward them all 
just at this time, but such a roguish laugh was in her 
eyes that it ran over into her cheeks, and though the 
back of her head was toward Mrs. Dorrance, that lady 
looking past Katie’s two pink ears saw that her cheeks 
were drawn up and puffed out at the top with the quiet 
laugh which Katie supposed she was hiding. 

Having finished the bottle, Wendt said, in an off-hand 
manner, as one of his sort might thank a railroad train 
porter, “ Thanks ” ; putting his hand into his pocket he 
drew forth a silver half-dollar and reached it toward Mr. 
McAuliffe. 

Old Bat fired almost to anger with the insult, said 
with a discourtesy unusual with him, “ Put that in yer 
pocket. Me hoshpitality is poor enough ; — bad cess to 
the mon as takes the mutton — but it’s not for sale. 
The money would burren me bond. Good mon, put 
it up.” 

Philip Wendt was astoiiished. He was accustomed 
to the idea that money buys anything ; that money settles 
everything ; accustomed to see Irishmen of the poorer 
wards of a great city sell their votes even for a “ city 
job”, a few days employment on the public works, a 
petty political office, or for a few much-needed dollars ; 
accustomed to seeing men (.^) waiters and footmen, and 


84 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


ushers, sell bows and smiles and slightest courtesy for 
“a tip.” The boy in the barber-shop always gave 
Philip’s coat two or three little pokes with a whisk 
broom, then looked or reached for his nickel. The hall- 
man would run out before Philip, and planting himself 
in the way, open the coach door and hold out his 
hand ; or would grab his hat, brush the nap the wrong 
way and hold out his hand. Even the minister of 
a church for which Wendt had secured a loan — and 
had charged a good round commission for doing it — 
had hinted that for having thrown the profitable 
job in Wendt’s way he ought to be given ‘‘a tip,” 
out of the toll of the mortgage grist. Wendt could not 
fathom the novelty of this Irishman who refused an 
offered half-dollar, and who had some other and mys- 
terious means quite unknown to Philip Wendt for the 
measuring of motives and sentiments and principles. 
Some other gauge than the dollar employed for all 
measures and purposes by Philip and his kind, and 
heretofore supposed by Philip to be the almighty dollar, 

“ Have this sate,” said Bat, as he pushed a chair 
hospitably toward Wendt. 

The novelty of the situation, as much as the novelty 
of the man, greatly amused Philip, and he fell into a 
more frank familiarity of conversation with Bat than he 
had ever before indulged toward an Irish workingman. 
Philip’s father was the office-seeker and politician. 
He had done all the coddling, hand-shaking, and baby- 
petting work — among the voting poor of his ward. 
Philip, himself, had been spared all that bore. He had 
only been asked to eat the juicy fruits, after his ‘'old 
man ” had picked them. 

“ Don’t suppose they make you pay much rent for 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 85 

this property ? ” Philip Wendt remarked, in a question- 
ing tone. 

Old Bat replied, “Sure I calls it me own. Me own 
vine and fig-tree ; me own, and the pig’s in his pin.” 

“ And how much land have you ?” asked Phillip. 

“As much as I like, along the railroad track.” 

“ Sure, my man, you don't own the railroad do you .? ” 

“No bother of the kind, mon.” 

“ Nor the land ? ” 

“No, or yes, as ye like. IfMishter Vick or Mishter 
Hardhand owns their land, tlien I owns mine, for a 
surer property. The margidge man drives thim off 
whin he likes and takes their land whin he wants it, 
and he do take a good bit of their crops ivery year fer 
what he calls interesht, and I calls it rint. Nobody 
does drive me off, nor take from me the use of me 
fields, — though they may, — and none takes me crops but 
the shtore-man an' butcher an' baker and candlestick 
maker. They do pay me tithes, er taxes ye calls thim, 
and takes their pay fer it out of me crops in the higher 
price they makes me pay fer the things I gets from 
thim ; and I'm not makin' me a worrit, to make me 
lean, with the runnin' o' railroads or the ownin' of 
farms or managin’ o’ onmanigable min.” 

What a refreshingly funny old man ! — what a silly, 
serious philosophy ! thought Philip. 

What a mud-waddling, dirty-billed, bright-breasted, 
quacking, float-about duck, thought Bartholomew as he 
noticed the great diamond on Philip’s shirt front and 
listened to the rasping narrowness of his speech. Plow 
like the son of a lord this fellow seemed to him as he 
compared the man, with his recollection of that sort 
of bird, on the Island over the sea. Old Bat felt a sort 


86 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


of condescending pity for the eating, sleeping, drink- 
ing, good-for-nothing, great coarse-sensed fellow. 

And Philip in turn also^felt a sort of patronizing pity 
for the “poor, ignorant, innocent, old Irishman,’' who 
did not even know the power that money wields, — 
poor soul. 

And so each, patiently patronizing the other “poor 
ignorant fellow,” took pains to be very kindly agree- 
able, each to the other. And each gently pumped 
information out of the other to satisfy his curiosity in 
such a social freak. 

Old Bat was the cleverer man of the two. A veritable 
Yankee Irishman, for he made questions of his answers, 
and asked questions without seeming to do so ; and in 
the end, he had learned more of Philip’s life and 
character than ever a stranger had before. 

For many hours the rain poured down and forced 
the two scions of city society to accept the homely 
hospitality of the hovel. Minnie Dorrance, unrestrained 
by the formalities, unwatched by the eyes of social 
martinets, fell easily into the pleasant diversion of chat- 
ting with these two ladies. Women, she would call 
them afterward, or persons^ more likely, if she men- 
tioned them at all. She became fascinated with the 
freshness, animation, wisdom and wit of Katie McAu- 
liffe, and would have given a fortune in exchange for 
a voice of such musically sweet and captivating tones. 
The rain lessened, at last. Then the worried look of 
misery came back into Mrs. Dorrance’s face ; for before 
her mind rushed the trying thought of returning at such 
an hour, in such a plight, to her summer boarding- 
house. She arose with visible evidence of great nerv- 
ousness, thanked the McAuliffes with extreme courtesy 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


87 

for their hospitality, gathered her silken skirts up again, 
and went out the door ; Philip Wendt, merely holding 
a bit of her sleeve in his thumb and finger, and leading 
her so, went down through the wet grass, under a still 
dripping sky, to the cart. They drove away in the 
darkness. 

Old Bat must needs ruminate, now. He chuckled, 
with an amusing little laugh, reached out his hand for 
Katie, who nestled up beside him, and wfith an arm 
about his neck, and her hand hanging listlessly over his 
shoulder, stood smiling down at him while he filled his 
pipe. Then she brought him a match, bent down and 
kissed the dear old kindly face and left him alone to his 
thoughts, while she and her mother chatted and made 
ready for bed. 

Candace Vick, the mischievous little fun-hunter, was 
over next day, of course, to see old Bat and Katie,' and 
she gave to the old man the little lacking information 
he had not already gotten from themselves, about the 
precious pair, and succeeded at last in getting him 
started upon his comical description of the couple, and 
the aspect they had presented to the mind of the crude 
philosopher. Candace laughed until she cried, and 
went home determined to repeat old Bat’s description 
of it, but she never did, to her own satisfaction, nor 
could any one else have done so. 

Something about the manner of the old man on this 
occasion was a mystery beyond Candace’s comprehen- 
sion. It was this : — old Bat, though he saw and appre- 
ciated the humor of it all, and could laugh until tears 
came into his eyes, seemed to pity them both at last, 
and, as near as was possible for him, looked sad. 
While Candace did not “pity them one bit,” only 
laughed. 


88 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


Very well, there are older children who condemn, or 
refuse to pity ; who are even possessed of a spirit of 
hatred of “ their moral inferiors;” who despise, and 
from their lofty seats of morality and culture look down 
contemptuously upon their falling, fallen, or foolish and 
erring fellow-beings. This is because we look only at 
the expression, the superficials, and not at the under- 
lying cause of such social phenomena; and are often 
thus terribly misguided in our judgment and our futile 
efforts for reform* 


JUST FLAJN FOLKS. 


89 


CHAPTER XL 

TWO STORM-CENTERS OF A SOCIAL TEMPEST. SOME THREADS 
OF THE WOOF OF OUR STORY. 

Mrs. Dorrance was late next morning, and looked 
ten years older. All were nearly through or had fin- 
ished their breakfast, when she came down. She ate 
alone. As she came through the hall and had her hand 
upon the knob of the dining-room door to open it, she 
heard, with her justly suspicious ears, words that made 
her hesitate ; Mr. and Mrs. Tendril, Mrs. Craft and her 
two daughters, Paul and Candace were still at the table. 

Mrs. Vick was attending them. 

The listening woman at the door heard Paul inquire, 

Did Mrs. Dorrance get home .? '' 

“ Yes,” answered Mrs. Vick, “and very wet. They 
were caught in the storm and had to drive all the way 
from Bedford Hill to Mr. McAuliffe s before they got , 
any house-shelter ; though they drove under a shed 
and waited some hours on the hillside.” 

Candace inquired, “Mother, did they really stop at 
old Uncle Bat’s } ” 

“Yes, Candace,” replied Mrs. Vick. And the twins 
laughed loudly, as Tryphy said ; 

“ Wouldn’t it have been jolly fun to have seen it, and 
to hear old Bat catechise them ? ” 

Johnny Dorrance seemed confused as to what it all 
meant. Mrs. Vick looked reprovingly at Candace ; 


90 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


and Johnny, so soon as he had finished his breakfast, 
went off towards the station, neglecting to first see his 
mother^ perhaps, even, not thinking of her at all. 

“If / had done so disgraceful a thing,’’ remarked 
Mj-s. Craft, “my hubby would have torn his hair out 
and have gone at once to a divorce court, as he ought.” 
And. this most immaculate little widow continued, “ If 
she got wet, it served her right ; she had no business 
driving about the country with that man ; and she, too, 
with a family of young ones and a husband at home 
slaving to supply her with catchy finery. ” 

“Who was that man.?” asked Mrs. Tendril, “I 
thought he looked dreadfully common.” 

“Yes, ‘loud,’” responded Mr. Tendril, “fearfully 
loud ; in that great plaid suit, and yellow driving 
gloves. Do you know, he reminded me of the pugil- 
ist’s trainer on a variety stage.” 

“Well, I s’pose she wanted to show off,” saidTry- 
phy, “but the end of the play, when Old Bat’s lines 
came in, must have been awfully comical.” Then a 
general laugh went round the table. Mrs. Vick looked 
pained and worried by the conversation. 

^ Mrs. Dorrance, in the hall, took her hand off the 
door-knob and tiptoed back to her room ; sobbed a 
little, and then came boldly down and entered the 
breakfast-room. She had distinctly heard Mrs. Craft’s 
last words, .and had an indefinite apprehension of the 
heedless gossip. As she entered, now, the sudden hush 
that came over all in the room, confirmed her worst 
suspicions. She sat down with lips firmly compressed, 
in a very apparent effort of self-control. Mrs. Vick 
poured her coffee, and with real anxiety asked after her 
health. The others had then passed out. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


91 


Mrs. Dorrance replied, “The drenching- has hurt 
me less than the insulting gossip of that woman,” — refer- 
ring to the little widow. ‘ ‘ She is the meanest, gossiping 
scandal-monger and story-teller, and — and — I ever 
saw.” She finished her meal in silence, and went 
immediately to Mrs. Tendrihs room ; Tendril was on 
the piazza smoking ; and Mrs. Dorrance expressed 
to Mrs. Tendril her opinion, that Mrs. Craft was “a 
greasy old dumpling, a desperate and hopeless widow, 
with all she had in the world strung onto her back, her 
fingers and her ears as bait to catch a man with.” 

Mrs. Tendril nodded and looked yes, and Mrs. Dor- 
rance continued, “O, Mrs. Tendril, if you could only 
have seen her yesterday, bobbing and dimpling and 
smirking right and left, and with those two loud-dressed 
hopefuls of hers, it would have made you sick. And 
that Gertie ! She’s another chip of the old blockhead ; 
and grinned like a skeleton at every gentleman they 
passed, even at the gentleman driving with me. It 
was just shocking.” 

Through all this tirade Mrs. Tendril had interposed 
only nods or shakes of the head, a yes or a no, and 
“I can’t bear that girl Gertie. Yes, indeed.’^ And 
still the preacher of evil continued her voluble abuse ; 
her prayer for vengeance went on and on, and the 
little Tendril saint responded with her Amen “yes” 
and exclaimed “indeed,” until all the stream of ven- 
geance intended to deluge Mrs. Craft had slopped out 
and spent itself in the presence of little Mrs. Tendril. 
Then Mrs. Dorrance sank into a chair to catch her 
breath and regain her dignity, so as to meet Mrs. Craft, 
and crush her with the cool deliberateness of a self- 
possessed lady. Crush her right down to the earth. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


92 

and hold her down with her little foot, while with 
haughty contempt, she would detail to the little widow 
her evil work and moral deformities. 

Stopping only to tap lightly on the casing of the 
opened door, she entered Mrs. Craft's chamber where 
the little widow sat, by an open window. Mrs. Dor- 
rance bowed in a stately way, said nothing, and with 
a dignified swing stepped into the room. She sat 
down in a chair near an unoccupied window, and drew 
a long breath. Mrs. Craft arose, blushed, dimpled, 
bowed, and with her most bewitching smile said : 

“How do you do? I am so worried about you. 
Did you get very wet ? And O, wasn’t the storm 
dreadful ? I was frightened nearly to death, and flew 
to my room. I kept saying to myself, ‘ Poor Minnie 
Dorrance, if she should happen to be out in this, 
wouldn’t it be terrible? And then I thought : she is in 
such good hands, that I feel sure she has been safely 
sheltered at the Rush House ; and then I felt easier. 
We barely had time to get into this old hovel ourselves, 
and get our house wrappers on before the storm came, 
and the — and ” 

Mrs. Dorrance showed an irrepressible desire to 
speak, and the voluble little widow came to a stop in 
midstream. “Mrs. Craft,” began Mrs. Dorrance, in a 
slow, deliberate and marvelously distinct articulation, 
“Mrs. Craft, a lady, a married lady, of my position in 
society, would not be likely to go to the Rush House 
with an unmarried gentleman, even to escape a rain 
storm. While I might with perfect propriety take an 
open drive in the street, with the gentleman who 
came with messages from my dear husband, and who 
has his entire confidence. By that fact, as well as by 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


93 


the kindliness of his self-sacrifice and personal incon- 
venience in bringing letters and parcels to me from my 
husband, he was entitled to the courtesy which as a 
lady I could not deny, and cheerfully gave. ” 

It had transpired that the rattling village-cart, in the 
quiet country road, at half-past eleven o’clock of the 
night before, had awakened Widow Craft from her 
peaceful sleep. She had peered out of her chamber 
window, and saw Mrs. Dorrance in her bedraggled 
state coming up the path to the door, with Mr. Wendt, 
under the bright lamp-light of Mrs. Vick’s providential 
care. Little Widow Craft had opened her door noise- 
lessly, crept stealthily into the hall, — in her night-robe, — 
leaned over the banister, and with head twisted sidewise 
and ears sharply intent with curiosity, had heard 
every word, sigh, whisper and sob of Mrs. Dorrance’s 
confession, so excitedly and thoughtlessly made to 
Mother Vick. 

“Why, my dear,” replied Mrs. Craft, “surely no one 
could criticise you for stopping at so proper a place as 
the Rush House, to get out of so terrible a storm, un- 
less they were very evil-minded. I would not have 
hesitated to stop there under such circumstances.” 

“ It is quite likely,” replied Mrs. Dorrance, speaking 
louder and a trifle more rapidly ; “ it is quite prob- 

able. I might expectj/ow to stop at the Rush House 
with a man to get out of the rain, or out of the sun, 
but / am not a person of that sort, Mrs. Craft.” 

“What do you mean, Minnie Dorrance } ” 

“ I mean all I have said ; and any one might expect 
nothing better of you. Any one who saw you yester- 
day, smirking up and down the road with those two 
bold, loud-looking daughters of yours ; and — and, that 


94 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


Gertie ogling and grinning at every man she saw, would 
expect such people to have no better morals nor sense 
than to go to the Rush House parlors with an escort ; 
but my position and culture do not encourage any such 
impudent proposition from an escort. I know all 
about the mean things you have said of me to Mrs. 
Tendril and to others in this house, Kate Craft; and 
you are a very contemptible, gossiping, mischief- 
making person ; and — and if I hear any more of your 
scandalizing talk I will repeat it to my husband, and 
he will settle it withjKow/ ” 

“You wouldn’t go respectably to the Rush House 
out of the rain, hey ? ” 

“ No, indeed. I leave that for such as you and your 
pretty daughters.” 

“Yes, Minnie Dorrance, I am very glad you leave 
the public parlors of an eminently respectable summer 
hotel to myself,— though I don’t choose to use them, — 
while you go tearing off to the hills and through the 
woods and bushes to a lover’s trysting-piace that over- 
looks a beautiful valley ; beautiful for only an hour, 
and with storm, desolation and ruin back of and over 
it. Don’t you speak my name, Minnie Dorrance, nor 
mention my daughters in connection with anything so 
low as that, — you — you — miserable woman. You and 
that silly Mrs. Tendril and that loafer boy of yours had 
best be put in a bag and shaken up together, and you 
would not come out first either. You are a most im- 
pudent busybody, to tell such stories as you have 
about me to Mrs. Tendril and everybody in this house, 
and I shall give that Mrs. Tendril a piece of my mind, 
too, for her backbiting tongue. ” 

“You’d better not. You’ll get as good as you’ll 


JUST PLAIN’ FOLKS. 


95 

send. She despises your Gertie, and her opinion of 
you — Fve just had it — is no better than mine.’’ 

“She’s a lying, gossiping little simpleton, and is 
married to a noodle. No sensible man would have 
her,” retorted the now irate widow. 

And so the war of words went on and on, each 
warding or striking with denials, recriminations, back- 
bitings, facebitings, much talk that bit or burned because 
it was true or because it was false. And the beginning 
of the end came, by way of vanquished Mrs. Tendril, 
who packed up her finery and with the Tendril “hubby ” 
left the house ; because — poor little dunce — she had won 
the hatred and brought down on her innocent head the 
vituperation of the other two ladies, in her effort to be 
agreeable to both. She had really only nodded, and 
said Amen to the one present, until accused of false- 
hood by both. The two came storming into her room 
together, iii an agreeable alliance, to give little Mrs. 
Tendril as large pieces of their respective minds as 
they could angrily tear off and throw into her poor 
little frightened face. They succeeded in throwing 
her into a deluge of tears, and with her sobs' still 
sounding in their ears, swept out of the room, joint 
victors, in a common warfare, and retired to Mrs. 
Craft’s room to compliment each other on their coura- 
geous vanquishing of the poor little woman, and to 
declare that all the trouble in the house had been 
made by the gossiping tongue of “that little busy- 
body.” . 

Then Mrs. Craft brought out and displayed Gertie’s new 
cream and heliotrope satin brocade tea-gown, over which 
Mrs. Dorrance went into ecstasies of delight. Mrs. 
Dorrance tripped to her room and returned with the great 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


96 

five-pound box of French fruit candies which she said 
Mr. Wendt brought up from Mr. Dorrance, but which, 
in fact, Mr. Dorrance had never seen nor heard of. 
They nibbled and pecked and hopped about and chatted 
like two city sparrows, who had pulled one another 
about by the neck feathers in a gutter fight, and were 
now happily twittering affectionate gossip in the 
church ivy. 

For the student of social phenomena each human 
life, in its individuality, has fascination. Even in their 
likeness to the beast, they are interesting. They, even, 
who employ charms to work evil ; the stare, rattle and 
sting of the charmer, the snake, as well as the ten- 
derness of the dove, the strength of the lion, the exu- 
berant joy of the lark. 

Human lives, in infinite variety, cross each other 
and interweave in the great pattern which the Master's 
loom is weaving. It is not within the scope of human 
mind, nor possible for human eyes to see it all, or 
follow out the life of each, as in threads of white and 
scarlet and gold, the woof of lives is woven in, and 
nearly covers the warp of black ; working out the great, 
grand pattern, designed by Him, and guided by “the 
eye that never sleeps.” We can only catch glimpses of 
“ a figure ” here and there, grand and beautiful ; thrill- 
ing us with thoughts of what 7nay be, or gaze curiously 
into the dark depths of selfishness and error that lie be- 
hind or open between, in spaces of dark contrasting 
background. Of the little figure in the great .pattern, 
which enters into this narrative, let us lift up some 
threads woven, or weaving in, and examine them. 
Philip Wendt is the son of a wealthy man, whose osten- 
sible business is that of a stock-broker ; and a very small 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


97 

portion of whose income is from commissions on the 
fleece of the lambs regularly shorn in Wall Street ; but 
whose greater revenue is from entailed property, 
left him by Mr. Philip Wendts grandfather — consist- 
ing of lots and the^ tenements thereon, ill the sixth 
ward of New York City. This so-called “ Broker 
Wendt,” is in facta “ Laird ” ; and his power of wealth- 
winning is not in a name or brain, but consists, in 
the quaint expression of old Bat McAuliffe, in “the 
power to take the mutton.” Philip Jr., his only son, 
has been sent to all the schools, and has gained a super- 
flcial educational polish ; enough to gild his coarse 
wings. He was allowed a more than generous annuity ; 
taught by word and example that notoriety of almost 
any quality is life’s desideratum. Wishing to revel in 
sense, and mount into public notice, he used his gilded 
wings to fly high and be seen. He is schooled in the 
sports of the field and the “ green-table.” He has been 
an attendant at races and pool-rooms. He is on “ Hello ” 
terms with the ^ ‘ demi-monde, ” and stakes money on the 
elections or on Sullivan. His father, the broker, is past 
middle age, rather idle, rather ignorant, very conceited, 
entirely self-satisfied, and besides being a small broker 
and a large landlord, is a small society man and a large 
politician, of the machine variety. Philip Wendt has 
had the life lessons and refining influences of such a 
father, and such associations. This broker-landlord- 
dandy-politician father, believed that if a thing was 
of any utility it must have been paid for. If it has been 
paid for — in his words — ‘ ' that settles it. ” If the money 
be paid the goods should be delivered. Whether the 
goods be court-decisions, ballots, special legislation, 
or special privileges to bagnios, boodlers, corporations 
7 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


98 

or gamblers. Let there be “ honor among thieves,” he 
believed in that. That is, his party of thieves, not the 
other thieves, except, perhaps, when they came together 
to rub noses in a negotiation to jointly exploit the 
people, and raid the treasury. An.d his taxes .? O, he 
could always “get them fixed all right.” Why, his 
property was mostly “old tenements” and rickety 
“ cheap buildings” anyhow, and “hadn’t ought to be 
taxed like good houses and the fine stores in Sixth Avenue 
and Broadway, certainly not.” Philip Wendt no more 
deserves to be condemned than pitied. He is simply 
the miserable fruit of a tree planted by our ancestry. A 
tree which has been, and continues to be, well watered 
and cared for by our government, although it is entirely 
a private and family tree. It draws its richness and 
glory, all its attractive, luxurious splendor, from the 
fertilizing filth and misery, of the gutter and tenement. 
Ah ! Philip Wendt, under other conditions, reared on 
other food, you might have been a man ; possibly might 
have been a noble and worthy man, but for this curse. 
In that you are not one, I will say, not au revoir^ but, 
go ! Yet it is not to the man, the brother, but to the 
character, the creature, and to the cause of its develop- 
ment, I would say, go ! We need not study that thread 
of woof longer. 

Another thread ; Thomas Dorrance, jobber and whole- 
sale dealer in hardware specialties, office in Chambers 
Street near Broadway, second fioor. By persistent hard 
work and honorable dealing he has established a good 
reputation and a fairly profitable business. Various 
manufacturers in New England and Old England and 
elsewhere are making good things ; goods, which 
Thomas Dorrance pumps industriously into his reser- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


99 


voir, where the little stores all over the country can 
send and obtain small quantities, to meet their little 
needs. Thomas Dorrance has this hardware tank 
tapped by a great number of mains and little pipes, — /. e. 
in railroads, boats, express lines, that make it easy for 
the Oshkosh retailer to open the faucet and let Dor- 
rance’s good things flow into his store just when he 
wants them. And the bill for this valuable service of 
storage and transportation, — for these valuable things, 
comes in once a month ; with the gas bill, water bill 
and their like. A working-man in Boonton, New Jersey, 
is shoveling ore into a wheelbarrow, and does not 
seem to know that he is producing nails ; but he is. 
Thomas Dorrance moves that same process another 
step farther. He shovels those nails into the retailer’s 
bin, and some of us do not even notice, or know, that 
he is also a working-man, a laborer, producing nails; 
but he is, just like the first man that took out the iron 
ore and placed it at the furnace mouth ; just like every 
other one who has refined and reformed it and moved 
it on, towards the end of production ; the ultimate pur- 
pose of production ; — which is to reach the location and 
meet the needs of the consumer, — to supply, so far as 
is possible, the insatiable demands of human need and 
desire. 

Thomas Dorrance, laborer, nobleman! Time was, 
when the reward for his good work was nearly 
equal to the added wealth his work gave to the world’s 
stock. They lived very comfortably, those days, and 
acquired expensive tastes and habits. He is a generous 
man and cannot easily say no, where to say yes is to 
give present pleasure to others. Competition, a most 
beneficent natural law of business equations, is, through 


lOO 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


unnatural interference, bereft of its good services, and 
has become thereby, harmful and almost ruinous to the 
business of Mr. Dorrance ; and to the profits of produc- 
tive industries generally. Mrs. Minnie Dorrance’s tastes 
are no less cultivated and exacting than heretofore. Her 
demands upon him have not decreased with his decreas- 
ing income. She don’t know why her wants should 
not be satisfied in all particulars, as ever ; and Tom 
Dorrance is going to ruin, in his struggle to keep up ” 
his business ; in fruitless effort to make Minnie Dor- 
rance and the children happy. He is drifting straight 
toward a pitiful failure, all around. If self-sacrifice is 
any proof of love, — and I believe it is about the only 
proof, — Thomas Dorrance is in love with his wife. 
Dress, extravagance, luxurious expenditures, very un- 
fortunately for her peace of mind and safety of morals, 
is her only measure of distinction. The ways of society 
have taught this ; and she has learned her lesson. 
“Why cannot Thomas Dorrance spend money like the 
Wendts and the Lords .? He used to do so. ” Mrs. Dor- 
rance is not happy, and is losing faith in, and patience 
with, her most devoted husband. We will lay down 
that thread in our history for the present, although in 
some other story by and by we may, for very pity, pick 
up the thread again, and seek the fundamental cause for 
the profitlessness of this needed industry, and the un- 
happiness of this family circle. For the present, to 
Thomas Dorrance, the hand of fellowship, heart of 
sympathy, and au revoir. 

Another thread, the Windhams, Mr. G. P. Windham — 
a real estate agent, an honest and honorable man — finds 
landlords for tenants, secures tenants for landlords, 
collects rent, negotiates sales and purchases and re- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


lOI 


ceives a well-earned competence for such labor. His 
family, consisting of a wife and two daughters, emulate 
the Wendts, Lords, and Opolees, and are quite in line 
with the Crafts and the Dorrances, in their ambition to 
be known and noticed. 

Mrs. Windham, with Grace and Laura, came promptly 
to take the rooms made vacant by the departure of the 
Tendrils, and promptly fell into the line of parade, 
delighted to find Rush House and Sconset Road more 
popular and more patronized even than the previous 
year. She immediately wrote to Windham, because 
she wanted to let him know of their safe arrival, be- 
cause she loved him and wanted to tell him of the im- 
provements and of their comfortable establishment, 
because she wanted to picture to him in a delicate way, 
the opportunity to raise her social banner and to call 
round them a following, and because she wanted to just 
remindfully and affectionately tap his pocket-book with 
her jeweled fingers. He replied : 

“ Office of Windham & Wood. 

“ Real Estate and Insurance. 

“ Brooklyn, N. Y. 

“ Dear Anna, 

“You may need more money. I enclose draft for seventy-five 
dollars. Can get it cashed at Scarborough Bank. I forgot to buy 
the canvas shoes for the girls yesterday. Buy them up there. Tell 
the girls to wear their wide hats and blue flannel tramping suits, and 
to live outdoors— in the woods, — on the hills; climb fences and 
‘ rough it.’ I am not especially delighted to learn of the ‘ changes ’ 
up there; that Sconset Road is getting lively; a thoroughfare ‘al- 
most ’ like Clinton Avenue, and to hear of the ‘ people who dress ’ gor- 
geously, etc., etc. We get enough of that at home, here. My idea of 
a proper ‘ outing ’ is simplicity, quiet and release from all such exac- 
tions; a pleasant ‘at home ’ with Nature, in her sweet, every-day dress 
of woods and weeds and wild flowers, — fields, and little birds that sing. 


102 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


and do not, like city sparrows, divide their time between pecking at 
filth in the highway and quarreling gossip in the window slats, trying 
to peck one another’s clothes to pieces. I get tired of such unworthy 
battles for supremacy in dress and parade and triumph of narrowness, 
and am glad to be freed, and quiet once or twice in a while. But 
there be some who like the ‘ fol de rol.’ However I should not, nor 
do I, expect everybody to be of my way of thinking or acting. And 
if one has to be ‘ in it,’ patience, in such an outing must be an ex- 
cellent and necessary companion, if we would enjoy such life. To be 
able to really enjoy it must be quite a virtue. I mean, to really enjoy 
‘Vanity’s Fair,’ — where over-anxious mothers bring out their 
feminine wares, curried and groomed, trot them up and down the 
exhibition track to teach them the pace, or if, perchance, a possible 
purchaser comes that way, make them walk gingerly, dance, prance, 
step high and cheat the truth of all its sweetness. 

“ I like natural people, real people, better than ‘ make-ups,’ who as 
last resort are, I fear, the very worst of pick-ups that mortal man or 
woman can select. Perhaps it is quite as well not to pick them up 
and try to carry them at all, they fall again so easily. However, if 
such an outing does not happen to amuse me, what right have I to 
ask or wish your acquiescence 1 What right have I to say when you 
may laugh, or where } I ought to be glad you can find place for 
laughter anywhere ; and I am. ‘ So there.’ I will laugh with you. 
For if to me it is neither tragic nor melodramatic, its absurdity is 
magnificent comedy ; and I laugh too, until the tears come into my 
eyes and my breath is gone ; laugh earnestly and merrily. 

“ Affectionately, your husband, 

“ G. P. Windham.” 

Doubtless Mr. Windham felt better for all that spilling 
over of his unasked opinions, and ]\Irs. Windham felt 
better for the check. But “Vanity’s Fair” was continued 
“ at the same old stand,” for many weeks more. And 
pride* had its victories and its falls at Sconset and 
Scarborough. They who could not “ outdo ” were 
hurt and they who did “outdo” were proud. It is not 
easy to determine — out of the riot of evil consequences 
—whether victor or victim is to be envied, Indeed 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


103 


whether in the end both are not victims. Other actors 
came onto the Sconset stage. The play went on with 
new characters but much the same action and lines, 
yet with the new actors, the vanity show was contin- 
uously interesting and funny, though hardly profit- 
able. 

Thetty received a letter from John, and that he might 
not burden her with his pain and disappointments he 
simply wrote that he had not been as successful as he 
could have wished in his first two weeks’ effort, but 
that he was continuously cheered by the memory of 
that vision, of the girl at the gate who looked out 
toward him ever and sent love in the look, etc., etc. 

Etta Foyle’s “two weeks off” came to an end alltoo^ 
soon. With garnered trophies of the fields and woods 
to be tastefully strewn about the little room of the 
Brooklyn flat, and with as many kisses and tears on the 
part of Thetty, Maggie and Mother Vick as if she were 
a sister and daughter leaving the home nest, Etta Foyle 
returned to the flat and the shop, to begin another 
year, which had at its termination the possible goal of 
another taste of Paradise on the Sconset farm. 


04 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XII. 

PARTISANS AND MUGWUMPS. 

John Hardhand, Farmer John, had passed through 
an entirely new and peculiar experience during the 
time he had spent in the great city. But this last ex- 
perience, this riot of thought, this mixing of the incon- 
gruous, this chaotic unfitness of visible facts produced 
by Thetty’s double, so disturbed him, so filled him with 
disquiet, that if he had been of the other sex, he would 
doubtless have been called hysterical. He was afraid 
to pause long at the Thirteenth Street corner of Fourth 
Avenue, lest “she” might come up that way. Pie 
sauntered leisurely down the Avenue toward his hotel 
home. When he had reached Ninth Street, Cooper 
Union, and was passing the entrance to the public 
hall, he saw posted on the bulletin in great black let- 
ters on yellow ground, an announcement of some sort. 
From his habit of listlessly staring at posters, he paused 
before it, and gazed dreamily at it. No thought or care 
possessed his mind as to the announcement printed there. 
He knew it was a great poster, knew it had no pictures 
upon it ; only that. But it was sufficient excuse to stop 
the weary tramp, for a moment, and gaze at it or pretend 
to gaze, while he only the more deeply dreamed. When 
the motion of his limbs stopped, it left his whole mind 
to dreams. After gazing at the poster for a full minute, 
without comprehending a line, or having any definite 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


105 

thought of it, he was aroused to an outward sense of 
his surroundings by the conversation of two men stand- 
ing immediately behind him, who were commenting on 
the posted announcement. 

“Oh, bosh ! ” said one, “the whole thing is a fake 
got up by a lot of cranks just to fool and exploit the 
workingmen, and to make a living for a lot of crazy- 
headed labor agitators.” 

“Now, Wilmot,” said the other, “why do you say 
that.? Have you ever heard this speaker.? Do you 
know these people to be crazy cranks .? Or has somebody 
told you so .? Do you personally, Jim, know anything 
about them .? — Jim Wilmot, Tm getting tired of swallow- 
ing and swearing by the religion and philosophy and 
politics of ‘the man that told me so.’ I've got enough 
of that sort of thing, and I’m going to do a little of the 
thmking for myself. I am not satisfied that an asser- 
tion is true ‘ because I have seen the man that told me 
so.’ And, in consequence, I am finding out that three 
times out of five, ‘ the man that told me so ’ was a 
blasted liar. He didn’t know anything about it, and 
talked as he heard other fools chatter, or else he did 
know and intentionally lied. He was looking out for 
his own bread and butter. He knew, or thought he 
knew, where the butter lay, and so long as I would be- 
lieve it, because ‘he told me so ’ a lie was just as useful 
to him as the truth, or was more so, if it would pass the 
butter plate over my head to him.” 

John was awake now ; that language had in it the 
bitterness of wronged manhood. He seemed to hear 
in it, for the first time in his life, the far away, low 
rumbling thunder of a social storm. He was interested' 
in the poster now, and read the great headlines : 


io6 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


Is NOT God the Father of us all? Are we not then 
Brothers ? 

He read every line of the bulletin carefully. It an- 
nounced regular weekly meetings in the main hall of 
Cooper Union, and addresses by one or more of several 
well-known students of the social problems. An em- 
inent Christian man and teacher was to speak this 
evening. John’s mind was confused as to what possible 
relation could be claimed to exist between the father- 
liness of God and the landless, the homeless, the 
tramp and the outcast, in their relation to hummi laws. 
“ I’ll walk up here after supper,” thought John. — ‘Ad- 
mission is free ! — ’ yes, and come in and hear what ‘ this 
crank’ has to say.” Then, Farmer John mentally re- 
viewed the popular measure of men and society, which, 
more is the pity — was also his measure of them, thus, 
— '' selfishness \s the inspiration and rule of action of 
all mankind. When men are no longer selfish, then, 
the Millennium ! ” 

“Nineteen hundred years of Christian civilization has 
not removed nor perceptibly abated human selfishness ; 
nor yet can it, though it may somewhat modify its more 
barbarous expression — boldly worn in the age of heed- 
less ignorance, — and give to it a more smooth and 
graceful presence in the age of culture.” 

“ But, ’’thought John, “it is at least amusing, though 
profitless, to listen to well-meaning people who have less 
than the usual amount of selfishness and greed, who 
seemingly ignore the inevitable law of selfishness, and 
estimate how life may be made better and happier, with 
as much confidence and assurance, as if it really could 
be made better.” To John in his present state, even a 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


107 

dream, however impossible of realization, was a diver- 
sion from the pain of living, and he determined to come 
and listen to the amusing chatter of this theoriser upon 
the premise of millennial virtue and morality. 

Now tjiat he had that definite purpose, the purpose of 
being amused, he started rapidly and reached Earle’s 
Hotel in an incredibly short time ; brushed himself up, 
ate his supper, looked over the papers in the reading- 
room and then sauntered leisurely up to Cooper Union. 
He was early, and had a half-hour to wait before the 
doors would be opened. A dozen or more persons 
were already waiting at the Third Avenue entrance, and 
the number gradually increased. Conversation was 
going on all about him. There was a kindly tone of 
good-nature pervading the assemblage, which was both 
novel and agreeable. John became an interested lis- 
tener. He discovered persons in earnest conversation 
who were evidently entire strangers to each other. 
They talked freely, yet were tolerant of each other’s dif- 
ferent views. He heard one say to another, “May I ask 
your name, friend } ” The other gave it promptly, 
together with his address and such general information 
as to his position and vocation as would give a concep- 
tion of the environment that had influenced his judg- 
ment. It is easy to be tolerant when we are acquainted 
with circumstajices that have affected the conclusions of 
those who widely differ from us. The conditions attend- 
ing this assemblage, as well as the conduct and purpose 
of the individuals composing it, were alike interesting 
and novel. John soliloquized, “why, after all, should 
men be afraid of each other.? ” And he was not startled 
nor surprised when a gentleman standing near said to 
him with unaffected familiarity. 


lo8 * JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 

“ Friend, it isn’t pleasant, to be obliged to wait here 
so long, is it?” And the stranger continued, “ But if 
the crowd back of us doesn’t increase so as to threaten 
life or limb by the press, I think we shall be repaid for 
all our discomfort, after we get inside.” 

To which John replied — after the Yankee fashion — 
with a question — “ Is the speaker really so very in- 
teresting and amusing P ” 

The gentleman looked curiously at Farmer John, and 
then as if he had solved the mystery, remarked, “ O, 
perhaps you have never heard him ? ” 

John had, heretofore, heard some contemptuous gos- 
sip about this particular public speaker. And now he 
recalled the rebuke that Jim Wilmot had deserved, and 
which had been administered to him, before the bulletin 
board. John himself felt not a little ashamed of hav- 
ing echoed the uncertain and harmful vaporings of 
“ the man that told me so.” So he answered the 
gentleman very respectfully, “ No, sir. I have not had 
the pleasure.” 

“ Ah, very well ; I think you will not regret coming 
to hear him.” 

“ What supports these fellows ? ’’asked John. “And 
how do they make these free meetings pay ? Brilliant 
and capable orators are not likely to employ their 
talents without some personal reward. A great hall 
and lights and ushers and all those things cost money. 
What pays for it all ? ” 

“ O,” said the stranger, “ they take up a voluntary 
contribution* to pay the hall expenses and for printing, 
but the speakers take no pay.” 

“ What is the subject discussed? What is the 
object of it all ? What are they aiming at ? ” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


109 

“ The serious problem of living : how to live,” an- 
swered the stranger friend. “We are discussing the 
‘ Social problem’ and how to solve it through political 
means ; political economy, the science of government.” 

“ Ah, ha,” said John, and he laughed a little, though 
quite respectfully, “I understand; politics, politics! 
Now I understand where the speakers and promoters 
of these free meetings look for the reward of their 
‘ labors’. While that sort of thing may occasionlly turn 
out a profit to the leader, the captain, I have failed to 
see that it helps the fellow much who carries the torch 
and wades in the mud ; that’s me, and the other high- 
privates. 

Reader, pardon the diversion, but it is due to Farmer 
John, that I relieve him from the appearance of dog- 
matism, by explaining the cause for his suspicious re- 
gard of anything political. At the moment John made 
that charge of pettiness and self-seeking as the impell- 
ing motive of these earnest students of political economy, 
there arose very distinctly to his memory, recollections 
of how, year after year, he had trudged about, through 
rain and mud, with the other farmer boys and men carry- 
ing a smoking, ill-smelling, grease-dripping torch, wear- 
ing a fantastic oil-cloth cape, following a rub-a-dub drum 
and a fife or worse — a country brass band — and banners 
or transparencies that made a puny and saddening 
effort to ridicule some other party’s convictions, or 
made equally absurd though specious promises of 
glory and enrichment, for each and “ every American 
citizen ; ” if its own policy be accepted, and with always 
the most grandiloquent bow in salute to “the American 
farmer” and a pledge to continuously maintain the 
present “ dignity, comfort and independence of the 


no 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


American workingmen. He remembered how Lemuel 
E. Havitt had been a sort of self-constituted political 
leader ; the captain of their Sconset political company. 
He remembered that “our side won the battle’’ and 
that “ our man got in” and that Lem had only the 
glory for his reward year after year, until at last he got 
mad and swore “he was not going to organize the 
Sconset Phalanx again unless they give him a show.” 
and then, a delegate from the county committee 
came to Lemuel E. Havitt with the statement that 
they “ had the promise of the State Central Commit- 
tee, that if their congressman ‘ got elected ’ he had 
promised to see that Lem should be ‘ fixed all right ’ 
next year, if he would only continue this year his 
patriotic and magnificent services to ‘the Party,’ his 
country and the cause of American freedom, as he had 
so splendidly done in the past. The Nation expected 
this State to decide the victory for the rights of the 
American farmer. The eyes of this State were upon 
dear faithful old Sconset, and looked to her to roll up 
her old-time majority for the Party ; and Lemuel E. 
Havitt, the victorious leader in so many battles, they 
trusted without feeir of failure, as one tried and true.” 
That fed Lemuel’s vanity, aroused his patriotism, quieted 
his discontent, and settled the matter. 

Lem “ went in again and beat the other fellows all 
hollow.” But he did not get the nomination for As- 
semblyman the next year ; two years later he did, how- 
ever, secure for himself an appointed office, that of 
inspector and appraiser of lumber, in the “custom 
house service ” at NewYork. 

About that time in John’s political experience, he had 
paused for a moment’s thoughtful consideration. He 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS, 


I 


had looked over his best clothing- ; what he called his 
“ Sunday-clothes.” These were the clothes that in his 
patriotic zeal he had worn to march about in, regard- 
less of consequences. The trousers were mud-stained, 
fringed a little at the bottom, bagged immensely at the 
knees, and the whole suit was shrunk and drawn out of 
shape by its frequent wetting. He figured up the pro- 
ceeds of his political '‘party work,” and if he had 
written it on paper, as it was written into his memory, 
it would have read thus : “If we had failed, I would 
know why I am so badly off. But ‘ my side carried 
the day ’ nearly every time ; and has had unhindered 
opportunity to do what they promised to do for the 
American farmer and the American workingman. I am 
in my own person both workingman .and farmer. 
They have not done as they promised to do. I am not 
fattening on their unkept promises. 

“ They have said to us, elect so and so. ‘He will push 
forward policy, such and such, which is the practical 
application of a great cardinal principle of our glorious 
party ; then the wheels of manufacture will hum with 
ceaseless activity ; an unprecedented demand will 
arise for the products of the farm ; our agricultural in- 
terests will be so advanced that prices and profits will 
place the American farmer at the very head of his 
vocation ; a model for the world of that prosperity and 
thrift which is only possible in this glorious and free 
Republic where all are free, and each has equal oppor- 
tunity with every other citizen.’ ” 

“ The money which is now held back from circula- 
tion and is stored away — for lack of confidence in the 
policy of ‘ the other fellows’ and the fear that they may 
‘ get in ’ — will then flow out freely through the whole 


II2 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


range of industries. Prosperity will be restored so soon 
as ‘ level-headed ’ business men are assured that our 
party, the party in which even its enemies have finan- 
cial confidence, is at the rudder of the ship of State. 
We will place the people of the entire foreign world 
in a position of dependence upon us, by making our- 
selves independent of them. Our ships will cover the 
seas, laden with out-going products of America, that 
the world must have. To all of which talk and tune 
the puppets jump about, and ecstatically kick, while 
the ventriloquist behind the curtain puts into their 
mouths this song: And the foreigner shall not send 

any goods, any good things, back to us, and — and — 
thus we prosper.' 

“ Very wdl, or perhaps very ill, my party won the 
fight ; our man was elected Our system and policy 
was tried. Lem went into the custom-house and in 
the second year of his service was dismissed for being 
so extremely careless as to be caught taking bribes. It 
happened that the captain of a schooner engaged in the 
lumber trade had, while intoxicated, betrayed Lem’s 
confidence in him. He had paid Lem twenty-five dol- 
lars to undervalue his cargo of lumber, and the drunken 
idiot in stupid confidence informed another fellow how 
he had ‘worked his cargo through, almost duty free.’ 
The other person belonged to the political party op- 
posed to ours. He made complaint, secured the 
arrest of both Lem and the captain, and Lem was 
dismissed in disgrace. But the party leaders have prom- 
ised to ‘ fix Lem all right ’ if he will continue doing 
good honest partisan work up at Sconset. Lemuel is 
a good political worker. They tell me, he is ‘ whoop- 
ing it up,' at Sconset this year, and figuring for the 


JUST FLA/N FOLKS. 


113 

Assembly. It may be that he will be elected. I 
should not be surprised at it. Political cunning has 
often been more efficient for the office-seeker than 
either wisdom or honor. ‘ A fool for luck ! ’ 

“And what now about the manufacturers, who were 
going ‘ to make work ’ for American workingmen .? 
The manufacturers, who were going to ‘ give work ’ to 
the landless, the helpless, the unemployed American 
workingmen } There was a great silk mill started down 
at Scarborough, but shortly after two struggling little 
silk mills at Neponset went down as the big mill 
at Scarborough went up and began operation. They 
started a great cracker bakery down there, too. It be- 
longs to the Combination, ‘The United States Cracker 
Baking Company.’ They have many great bakeries 
in different cities throughout the country ; produce 
crackers with machinery and cheap help. The other 
political party declared that crackers would be dearer 
if OUT party came into power, but they are not any 
dearer than before, — about the same. — But there are no 
more men at work, there is no more money going 
around, and what there is, is harder to get — at least it 
is harder for us high-privates in the army of producers. 
Wages are lower and opportunities for employment 
more scarce ; confound their statistics to the contrary. 
Let twenty of them start out with me and try the man 
market. There are no more crackers baked nor eaten ; 
there are less. And there are not, all told, so many 
bakers making crackers. But ‘The Baking Company,’ 
I am told, is ‘making money hand over fist.’ They 
keep it in their fists, too, and hand very little of it 
over to bakers. As there are only a very few mem- 
bers of ‘The Baking Company,’ a great number of 
8 


114 


/UST FLA /N FOLKS. 


cracker bakers and a still greater number who are 
neither members of The Company nor bakers, The 
Baking Company counts for very little in making 
a market for farm products ; and farmers are obliged 
to depend upon that great majority, the dependent 
people of small means. It is their ability to buy that 
makes the market demand and determines the market 
price for our products — the price both to themselves 
and to the wealthy. 

‘ Our system ’ was tried, our promise had its 
opportunity of fulfillment, yet the sea is not covered 
with American merchant ships ; indeed, no American 
merchant ships cross the sea, laden or empty, in this 
anno Domini 1890.. But the government is going to 
hire some ships to steam across the seas, if our party 
secures control again, perhaps even before that 
event. 

“It is said that it does not pay to run American ships. 
If, however, the ship-owners will help to elect ‘ our 
man ' the government will ‘ fix that all right ’ ; did 
they not ‘ fix ' Lem Havitt all right ? They are going 
to pay a part of the expense of running the ship-owners" 
ships. Why in the name of ‘American equality’ don’t 
the government pay a part of my running expenses .? 
I thought we had all equal rights to the benefits of 
government in this land of the free. Equality, indeed ! 
Free indeed ! Free to starve, if some one more favored 
cannot or will not give me an opportunity and per- 
mission to live.” 

John had a distinct recollection at this moment of 
having once talked in this unorthodox fashion to a 
political compatriot, and the man, astonished at his 
incredulity, had said to him, with all appropriate rhetor- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


5 


ical flourish and with that conception of the situation 
peculiar to the partisan politican : “ Here, here, John 

Hardhand, hold on ; h-o-l-d o-n. You are getting in 
over your depth. Do you doubt that the great and 
good statesmen of your own party know more about 
politics than you do ? Think of the founders of our 
party, think of the great things our party has accom- 
plished. What do you know about politics, anyway ? 
You haven’t the time to study out political problems. 
Let politicians attend to the management of politics. 
Leave such matters to those who know how. You should 
always trust your tried and true political party. Your 
father did, and his father did. Think you know more'n 
your father, hey ? Gett’n smart. Don’t go back on 
your party and be a turncoat.” 

“ Ah yes,” John had replied, “ the party, that is, the 
politicians, are always glad to trust their policy to the 
wise, conservative judgment of the American people ; 
so long as the American people permit the politicians 
to determine ‘ the policy ; ’ so long as the people give 
assent to the insolent claim, that ‘the party,’ — that is, 
the politicians — know better what the people want, 
than the people themselves. ” 

And to this his political associate retorted reprov- 
ingly : “You come of a solid New England ancestry, 
John Hardhand. Your father and your grandfather 
knew what they were about. You stick to your party ; 
w^hether you are a democrat or a republican, be true 
to your party. If you go to fooling around, and think- 
ing over these things yourself, the first you know, you 
will J)ecome a mugwump. And of all contemptible 
things in this world, the most contemptible of all the 
political cranks is a mugwump. Any good, ‘ true dem- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


1 16 

ocrat' or good ‘true republican’ will tell you that. 
Just read any of the party newspapers and see how 
they despise a mugwump. ” 

“Now that is significant,” thought John, “these 
politicians that know all about politics, who are in the 
‘ politic business ’ and all these great party newspapers 
that are prospering by catering to the follies of a party- 
following people, do so hate and despise, and are so 
much disturbed by a mugwump, and afraid of mug- 
wumpery, that it forces me to believe there is some- 
thing selfish about their malignity. I never saw a man 
yet who had not some good in him, and these party 
men paint the mugwump all bad. I would like to know 
just what a mugwump is. Papers and politicians have 
given as many definitions of him as you can shake a 
stick at, and all bad. One says : ‘The mugwump 
is a “sore-head,” disappointed because he cannot get an 
office.’ Very well then, nine-tenths of the politicians, 
yes, all but those in office, are mugwumps ; so that 
cannot be a correct definition. Another says : ‘ A 
mugwump — he’s a conceited fellow, with some “fool 
ideas,” impracticable and utopian, that he wants to 
force into practical politics. He is the fool in politics^ 
Then John recalled names and memories of some of 
the men whom party papers and orators had politically 
outlawed as mugwumps ; some of the fools. And in- 
deed it included the names of men who had stood high- 
est in national and party respect. Another definition : 
“The mugwump, not satisfied with the dictum of his 
party (the politicians), is a man who has opinions 6f his 
own, and expresses them, in defiance of the oft-repeated 
warning that it will hurt the party.” 

“There, that’s it,” thought John, “ my Party insists 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


117 

upon my believing that I am prosperous, even though 1 
were being robbed. Wants me to believe — at least, 
while my party is at the helm — that this is the best pos- 
sible government. Wants me to believe that farmers 
are getting rich ; that there is work for all, wealth for all, 
luxury for all, who are not lazy and unwilling to reach 
out their hands. That there is a free and waiting 
chance for all who want it, and try. That every 
American citizen unless he is ‘ too lazy to work ’ is guar- 
anteed at least a good ‘American home,’ a luxurious 
support for his family, a safe surplus for a happy and con- 
tented old age, and that all American citizens are guar- 
anteed exact equality of opportunity to accomplish 
those good results. Parties and papers may spout that 
ridiculous absurdity as much as they please, — I, John 
Hardhand, know from my own anxious and alarmed 
observation, — know out of my own hard practical ex- 
perience, that all that stuff is a political party lie. And 
when a man or a party lies, they have an object in ly- 
ing ; and it is not often a worthy object. At my first 
opportunity I am going to learn, if possible, in what the 
particular Mugwump differs from the orthodox ‘practical 
politician.*” 

The stranger who had called John Hardhand, 
“friend, ” and had scf suddenly aroused all these thoughts 
and memories in his mind, was chatting now with 
another man who seemed to be his companion ; and 
John came out of his day-dream diversion, into a sense 
of things about him, — a sense of the general con versa- - 
tion ; a cheerful sort of hope-inspired chatter, a spirit 
of good humor pervading the assemblage. But over 
all there seemed to abide an earnest seriousness that 
excluded the frivolous. 


ii8 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


The writer of this little “history of plain folks'' can 
imagine Franklin, the Adamses, Washington, Jefferson, 
and their compatriots, cheerfully, good-humoredly at 
work on the keel and hull of a new and better ship of 
State ; and the cheerfulness of the hope of human bet- 
terment that encouraged them. But he cannot con- 
ceive of anything simply amusing and frivolous, in 
either their talk or their work, as they studied the 
wreckage of other governments, contemplated the 
sacred and “ inalienable rights of man," studied the just 
principles an^ just limitations of the powers of govern- 
ment in its relation to the sacred rights of the individual. 
Men, honestly, earnestly, seeking to better the condi- 
tion of their fellow-men, unselfishly desiring to make 
life for all men worthier, nobler, and happier, may be 
cheerful, and will be so, but they cannot be trifling 
and frivolous at their work. Yet so long as “party 
service" continues to be the price of official selection 
and placement, there will be skylarking in the lobby, 
and frivolous laughter-making nonsense on the floor of 
the United States House of Representatives. And 
votes of censure will prevail for the minority members 
who shall have the boldness to criticise silliness. This 
humiliation will surely continue so long as in payment 
for having made partisan thunddr, I. M. Out simply 
vacates to make place for the Lem E. Haveits. 

Ah, at last, the door of entrance was thrown open, 
and into the great Cooper Union Hall rushed the crowd 
of men, yes, and women too, who, beginning to think for 
themselves, are anxious to hear “the other side," all 
sides, keenly sensing the injustice of social conditions. 
Yes, the door to a higher civilization is being thrown 
open, in this last decade of the nineteenth century. The 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


I19 

party-serving- yokes of prejudice and dogmatism are 
being cast off. Think your thought and say your say, 
and seek to know righteousness and truth wherever 
they may be found. Walk in, gentlemen, the door is 
open. 


120 


JUST PLAIN POLKS. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A COOPER-UNION MEETING. 

Every seat of the great Cooper Union Hall was filled. 
John Hardhandwas near the center aisle, and only four 
or five seats from the front. There were seated on the 
platform, at the right and left of the speaker’s table, 
thirty or forty persons, ladies and gentlemen, many of 
whom had the appearance of intellectual distinction. 

John questioned the gentleman sitting next him 
about the frequency of these meetings ; if they were 
usually so well attended. He learned that they 
were, and that frequently many were turned away for 
lack of seating-room. John also learned that the man 
with whom he conversed was born at Scarborough, and 
came to New York to live when but a little boy. Some 
of his famfily still lived there. John knew of them. 
The name was Wilson. 

“Mr. Wilson,” said John, “ will you kindly inform 
me about the people sitting on the platform .? Who is 
that gentleman, slightly bald and a little gray, at the 
left, there ? ” 

“That,” replied Mr. Wilson, mentioning the gentle- 
mans name, “is a son of the great man whose 
fame you doubtless recall as the foremost opponent of 
human slavery, before and during the late war. And 
the gentleman sitting next him is a professor in one of 
our New England colleges.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


I2I 


“ Who is ■ the priest all shaven and shorn/ sitting- in 
his long robes ? ” asked John, with just a little touch of 
contempt in the tone of his inquiry. 

“He is a clergyman,’’ Mr. Wilson replied; “son 
of a distinguished bishop of the Episcopal Church ; and 
is a ‘ brother ’ in the ‘ Order of The Iron Cross.’ Without 
any financial reward, — like the Nazarene Carpenter, — 
he is wholly devoting his talents and his life to the 
service of the poor ; living in their midst, educating, 
encouraging, uplifting, helping them. He is much 
among people whose ignorant religious tendencies, 
like that of the ancient Jews, are first inspired by ex- 
terior forms ; and with the religious garb, he can and 
does reach and inspire with the sweetness of a Christian 
spirit, very many whom without the ceremonial dress 
he could not reach at all. He really is giving himself 
for his ‘ neighbor. 

The contemptuous lines all smoothed out of John’s 
face, and he said, “ Bless him ; — but I do so dislike the 
robes of religion. ” 

“Yes, — no doubt,” replied Mr. Wilson ; “ ’tis a very 
common prejudice. A prejudice aroused by the fact 
that priestly robes so often cover an unchristian spirit 
and life. It isn’t the robes that are wrong and deserv- 
ing of contempt, it is the unworthiness which they 
sometimes cover. He wears these robes as worthy 
means of helping in the work of doing good. Our 
prejudices harm our judgment, always. I know mine 
harm me.” 

“Who is that short, compactly-built, hearty-looking 
little fellow, with the full beard and bald head, — away 
back at the rear, on the second row of chairs ? ” asked 
John 


22 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


“That,” replied Wilson, “is the author of a most 
instructive and interesting book on political economy. 
He has made a great commotion among the followers 
of old follies, and a great many enemies among the 
manipulators of political machines. With the exception 
of one other man — Mr. Gladstone — this little man 
is perhaps the most widely-known person in the world 
to-day. He has won the love of his friends, the 
admiration of the world, and the respect of those who 
hate his teachings ; because of his intellectual honesty 
and fearlessness.” 

John continued his inquiries, and gained much desired 
information. There were on the platform, ministers 
and priests, Christian teachers of world-wide renown ; 
a Jewish rabbi, a college president, scientists and 
artists, an eminent poet, representatives of the highest 
literary talent, a judge of the Superior Court, two 
congressmen, several ladies prominent in literary 
circles, and a real live member of the British Parliament. 
And these fools were doubtless mugwumps, — for they 
certainly had opinions of their own. 

A round-faced, happy-looking man, wearing glasses, 
arose, and stepping to the desk, rapped for order. He 
was lustily cheered, and some time was joyously 
spent in giving him welcome. At last he secured 
order. As the chairman of the meeting, he made a 
few introductory remarks, and proceeded to introduce 
“ the speaker of the evening,” who came forward from 
a seat at the rear of the platform. John was startled 
by the enthusiasm of the cheering that greeted the speak- 
er’s appearance. He was a large and finely-propor- 
tioned man, with a fine head, a plump, ruddy, clean- 
shaven face, and dark brown, almost black, hair. The 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


123 


cheering arose again and again. Smiling, he bowed to 
the sea of faces, and as he raised his hand, with open 
palm toward the audience, the acclamations ceased. 
Quiet instantly fell over all the house ; — a perfect hush. 
He had no notes, nor did he seem to need them ; for 
filled with rush of thoughts, too full and rapid-flowing 
for utterance, he seemed to hold them in, and only 
guide them. His voice was full and resonant. He 
spoke in a conversational manner. He moistened his 
lips from the glass of water on the stand beside him and 
beginning his speech, said : 

“ Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen : It but ill 
becomes one standing in all the weakness of this 
human life, to question the decrees of the providence 
'of the Creative Mind, or to question the inalienable 
laws that by the same Creator have been ordained for 
the best use of His material gifts to the children of men. 
We find ourselves in this human state, bound to the 
earth by the necessities which make its use the means 
of existence, and its best use the means of our highest 
material and spiritual perfection. ‘The heaven of 
heavens, is the Lord s ; but the Earth, He hath 
given unto the children of men.' To attribute to luck 
or fate or Providence, conditions that are ; to thus 
mislead and befool that human judgment, — which, if 
unjust, should be at least intelligent — to call the ways 
we mortals go, GocCs ways, and say of them, ‘it is 
divinely intended so, or it would not be,' is a way to 
ruin, but not a way to righteousness. Our Father's 
‘ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths 
are peace.' 

“ With reverent submission to the will of the Creator, man ac- 
knowledged from the beginning, that the visible works of God, all 


124 


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wondrous in their beauty, in their number, in their order, in their 
proportions, were but the school into which the Father had led his 
well-beloved child ; that learning to read aright the handwriting 
upon the rocks, the sea, the sand and even upon the stars of Heaven 
he might come to know the beneficence and beauty of natural laws 
and in man’s just and joyful use of that knowledge his heart shall 
sing, and ‘ God’s will be joyfully done on earth even as it is in 
heaven.’ ” 

“ Man felt, man knew, that he could well spurn the earth, because 
he was the child of the king ; that the Father desired that he should 
earn the blessed reward of perfect favor and perfect love by working 
out his destiny. And so that this world was not only a school in 
which man might learn to read rightly the Father’s will that is written 
in unmistakable characters upon all His works, but also a workshop, 
into which the wise Father led His child, that by the proper, the 
reasonable, the proportionate exercise of all his faculties he might 
make out of the raw materials that God has placed in such abundance 
around him, things new and strange. And thus proclaim, also, in 
some measure, his likeness to the King, his Father, by exercising in 
some sense the creative faculty. God gave to man, then,, this power 
to know the truth, to discover the laws of nature, and from the laws 
of nature to rise to the knowledge of nature’s God ; to admire and 
to love all that is good in God’s visible works.”’ 

With such philosophy of the economics of nature, 
the orator spoke on for an hour, cheered warmly, en- 
thusiastically, at those sallies of poetical truth which 
swept like the awakening- melody of a song in the 
night over the aroused sympathies of men hungering 
for brotherly fraternity, but forced to fight their brothers 
in “the battle of life.” They were constant in their 
attention, and John marveled at the earnest kindliness, 
that smoothed out the lines of anxious care, and wrote 
instead on every face the joy of hope. The speaker 
referred instructively to the existing social antagonisms. 
He pointed out the mistakes of men which so long as 
they are perpetuated, make strife and struggle a ne- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


125 


cessity of life. He pointed, also, from the way of pain 
to the way of peace. He called the attention of his 
audience to the specific mistakes in human laws, that 
had placed brothers at enmity, and embittered life. He 
stated clearly the truth of the way to correct human 
laws so as to make it profitable in this human life to 
be just and to do unto others as we would wish others 
to do unto us. He painted with words that burned the 
color into the memories of men an unmistakable pict- 
ure of the joy of earthly living, in the midst of a kindly, 
brotherly fraternity, easily made possible and actual 
and materially profitable, by a very simple change in 
human laws which would reverse the cause for 
enmity, and make injustice and willing idleness unpro- 
fitable. He pointed to the one only barrier, the 
indifference of ignorance, and to the one reforming 
force, intelligent education. He urged as the duty 
of each who had caught sight of the truth, whose heart 
had been fired with the fullness of its promise, to carry 
the torch to other hearts, and spread the light. He 
likened it to a crusade. 

“ It was the badge of the cross of Christ, the ensign of the holy- 
war, that gave to all our modern languages the word ‘ crusade ’ It 
need be no material emblem, but it stands for the acceptance by men 
and women, by whomsoever will hear the call that invites them, as a 
symbol of noble purpose. It invites them to forget themselves, to 
set aside their wretched strifes, to utterly renounce the injustice in 
which they have been engaged, and to take on a new enthusiasm of 
humanity in believing, working, battling, suffering, and if need be 
dying for the right. He who ‘ spake as never man spake before ’ 
or since, in homely accents, and in simple parables taught the poor 
and lowly and oppressed, the comforting doctrine, so full of truth and 
light, of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” 

The speaker referred also with genuine sadness, to 


126 


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the social disturbances, strikes, riots, lockouts, as the 
blows at random, of ignorance made mad with injustice 
and oppression, striking out wildly in defense or in 
revenge. “The trod worm turning.” A most por- 
tentous promise of what will come, if we seek not 
and follow not the peaceful way. He said : 

“ It is not my purpose, my intent, my thought, to justify the ex- 
cesses of nihilists or socialists or dynamiters, yet in the heart of these 
supposed nihilists, anarchists, dynamiters, in spite of their hatred 
of so much that is good, in spite of a spirit that at times seems so 
destructive, so subversive and so absolutely atheistic, there is for all 
that, more of the essence of religion in them, than in many of those 
who sit in the foremost places in the synagogue and thank God they 
are not as other men are.’ The very rage, the very fury, the very 
apparent satanic hatred of the nihilist and the dynamiter in his 
horrible and misguided methods is nevertheless a magnificent tribute 
to the spiritual and better part of man, the God-given instinctive 
hunger for justice. 

“ Take away injustice, preach to the dynamiter, the extreme social- 
ist, the nihilist and the anarchist, the fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. Teach him that the wrongs he suffers, the 
crimes that so outrage him, that make him so bitter against the ex- 
isting order of things, are not the result of the law of God, but are 
the necessary penalty, the self-inflicted, natural penalty of the viola- 
tion of God’s laws, and he ceases to be the dynamiter. (Applause.) 
He ceases to be the atheist. (Applause.) He takes on a reverent 
and loving spirit. His sense of justice is satisfied, and he is the more 
willing to work by peaceful, lawful, constitutional means, for the 
righting of the wrongs, for the teaching of the gospel of truth, until 
a majority of the voters in a government by the people, shall recog- 
nize the wisdom and the profitableness of justice, and so re-write the 
laws of men as to align them with the right, God-ordained, natural 
law, of absolute and equal justice among all men.”* 

* The quotations in small type, are from the stenographic report 
of a speech which the author heard from the lips of a man he has 
learned to love and respect, and whom he takes this opportunity to 
thank for the utterances quoted, and for many good seeds sown in 
the field of human betterment. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


127 


A most perfect orator ! His every word and gesture 
expressed such intense earnestness, that he promptly 
won the sympathy and moved the hearts of his audi- 
ence. Responsive cheering seemed an irresistible 
temptation and the audience frequently obliged him to 
hesitate for a moment, awaiting the restoration of 
silence. There would seem to have fathered in his mind 
during the pause even greater intensity of thought and 
conviction, which burst out in greater power of language 
and rang with the cheering prophecy of a better day, 
or burned as did the burning letters of promised doom 
on the palace walls of the Babylonish king, with 
baleful prophecy, if we refused to seek and follow 
the sure and peaceful way, “a way out” from that 
unbrotherly isolation and antagonism, that now, so 
shapes the course of men ; that unbrotherly strife 
with which all the race is so weary and disgusted, ex- 
cept perhaps a few of the financially most cunning 
and successful. His audience found here rest, respite, 
and a clear and wholesome breath of a purer air. This, 
from the atmosphere of a reasonable hope of the dawn- 
ing of better conditions. 

They gained a new and clearer comprehension of 
“the Father’s provision,” not for one only, or some 
only, but for all His children. They saw for the first 
time their real likeness unto God, in His gift to them, 
of creative power, in a certain sense. A power dele- 
gated to man ; the reasonable power to use the 
materials and opportunities and forces of the earth, 
and produce; create for himself, things new and need- 
ful, comforting and joyous. Thus came to the mind of 
this audience, an awakened and clearer thought of His 
fatherliness, insomuch that when the speaker com- 


128 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


menced to repeat the prayer of the Nazarene Carpenter, 
“Our Father/' his voice was drowned in the great 
Amen of cheers that arose from the very hearts of men, 
long lost to all interest in the spiritless formalisms, 
and frequent inconsistencies, of the religion of the 
churches. 

Our Father ! The All-Father ! Then it is not He^ 
but we — have wrought the misery and pain with which 
we groan. Mistakenly, heedlessly, perversely, we 
have neglected his gifts, made hideous and unlike, our 
likeness to Him. Have robbed most men of their 
opportunity to “ work out” with the use of mind and 
matter, their own salvation and elevation into a more 
complete intellectual and moral “likeness” resuming 
the original “likeness.” He is owv Father ; and the 
doubting heart is reassured, its hope renewed, and He 
is the A/Z-father ; so the thought and fact of the universal 
brotherhood springs up, to sweep away with gentle 
hand the bitterness of strife, and to win our pity, where 
we cannot yield our fullest love. And now we see, or 
begin to see, the pettiness of our childish quarrels and 
strifes about “the toys” and “biggest boys,” and all 
such trifle. We are brothers and He is the Father of 
us all. We may well pity our brothers and sisters and 
ourselves. Spoiled children of social mal-environment, 
who vaunt ourselves, disparage our brothers and strut 
and scratch and tyrannize. “ My father is richer than 
yours. My family is older than yours. I am more 
cultured than you. We own more of the earth than 
you.” To all of which the greater number of brothers, 
children of the one Father, the “poorer,” the humbler, 
the more ignorant, the landless, answer back with 
frowns or blows, or in pouting sulks and dirty swollen 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


129 


tear-stained eyes, “You don’t play fair. Just wait 
till I get the chance, I’ll get the best of you.” 

And, reader, have you never noticed among little 
children and children older grown as well, how adroitly 
the greedy grabber of goodies, withholds justice, by 
treating bold beggary with contempt, and then also, 
treating silent suffering as equally unworthy ? He of 
the House of Have, says to his brother of the House 
of Need, as little children sometimes do, “You shan’t 
have none now, just ’cause you asked.” And to an- 
other who only looks wistfully, when goodies are 
in sight, and pleads afterwards, “ Well, / did not ask,” 
the holder of the whole confection box says, “What 
ain’t worth asking for ain’t worth having. If you 
wanted it much you’d have asked for it.” 

Working, wealth-making men, ask for a larger part 
of the product, and get for answer, “No, you can’t 
run our business, now, we wont give you more.” 
They threaten and strike; “No, indeed, now, you 
shan’t have any.'' “Lock them out.” They do not 
ask, and the greedy holder of the bon-bon box fills the 
press with chatter of bragadocio about “ the thousands 
of Americans to whom I ^ give work' are so well 
contented and satisfied with what I give them that 
they don’t even ask for more. I think I am giving 
them too much of the product.” And he soon feels 
that he is marvelously generous and ought to look out 
for himself a little more, and generally does do so, by 
giving notice of a ten per cent, reduction of wages. All 
this among the brothers ; — children of our Father ; 
equal claimants upon His bounty. With equal rights to 
his gifts, and no right to take or withhold from any 
brother the common gifts from our Father to all His 
9 


130 JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 

children, nor to exact price or humiliation from another 
brother, for our consent to his use of the Father’s gifts. 
John Hardhand was catching a glimpse of a way of 
escape from the social wrangle ; as much as his half- 
opened eyes could see. 

The way and the coming day of morality and unself- 
ishness, is always treated by the “Apostles of content- 
ment” as the millennium, utopian, impossible; some- 
thing to contemptuously laugh out of the argument. 

John thought he saw a way in which it tvas possible 
that selfishness might be made to serve justice ; and 
right become profitable. Other speakers followed the 
orator of the evening in brief speeches. 

Then the chairman asked those who might wish to 
catechise, to write and send up questions to the desk, 
which he would try to answer with all possible infor- 
mation in his possession. Many did so. John sent one. 
All were promptly read aloud and answered. The 
answer made to John’s question was so direct, so pecul- 
iarly simple and undeniable and yet so difficult for him 
to believe, — because of a practiced mental habit of 
reasoning so reversed to this clear truth — that he could 
not see it clearly. He was dazed with the new light, 
even as with the sunlight when he came down from his 
sleep on the morning that he left Sconset when com- 
ing from troubled sleep he met Old Jimmy McGurk, 
his own fate, and the morning sun at the door. 
He covered the eyes of his mind now, again, with 
the brown, hard-handed habit of his old-style thought, 
and felt it easier to believe this “a millennial vision,” 
than the true and possible. He drew Thetty’s last 
letter from his pocket ; and lest he might forget a word 
of it, wrote on the back of the envelope, the question 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


131 

he had asked, and its exact answer. Two men of 
genial manner went his way as he left the half He 
joined them, fearlessly, as if he had always known 
them well. They walked and talked together the 
entire way ; and he learned much. They shook his 
hand heartily at the door of the hotel, bade him good- 
night and strode on chatting together, toward the great 
Bridge. 

John might suffer want or starve despite all this, so 
he thought, but he felt less alone, and went to his bed, 
a happier man. 


132 


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CHAPTER XIV. 

NORTH & CO. MORE PAY. PESTIFEROUS IFS. 

Our friend the erstwhile farmer, John Plardhand, had 
a predisposition to self-reliance. He was perhaps 
super-sensitive about asking- favors of acquaintances 
thathe had made simply as summer boarders at his home 
in Sconset. He was quite loth to presume on their desire 
or willingness to assist him in obtaining work. He had 
only called, in a casual and friendly way, on Mr. Wind- 
ham, Mr. Dorrance, and at the little real estate office of 
Tendril & Co., all in New York. He called occasionally 
on Etta Foyle, at the little twelve-dollar flat in Brook- 
lyn. She detailed to him the news she had from 
Thetty, believing it of interest to him, and it was a con- 
veniently entertaining subject of conversation, for a 
correspondence with long intervals was maintained 
between them. Poor little Etta Foyle, bound to her 
daily work, was also bound nightly to the little top 
flat where her good widowed mother was all alone in 
Etta’s absence. Consequently she rarely went out in 
the evening and had no gentlemen’s society at all. 
John, fine looking, pleasant and kindly in manner, 
without affectation, and with the forceful, magnetic 
power of a great physique and a strong character, 
seemed grand and quite awe-inspiring to her. She was 
afraid of him. When he called, the odor of boiling 
cabbage and of soapsuds came up to their top flat 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


133 


from the four double flat-floors beneath them, with a 
pitiless, sickening odor. Their little trifles of art and of 
bric-a-brac looked mean to her, and she was always 
both sorry and glad when he went. John saw it, in 
spite of her effort to be cordial and entertaining. He 
made his calls at rarer intervals, and finally neglected 
to call. 

In his seeming hopeless extremity, John was at last 
constrained to appeal to Mr. Windham, to ask the 
aid of his influence ; and to also ask Mr. Dorrance and 
others to help him. They did not have employment 
for him, nor did they know or hear of an opportunity ; 
business was so dull. He was not sure that they were 
not offended ; and he regretted that he had not confined 
his efforts to strangers. As John’s hope was going, his‘ 
faith in men was getting somewhat shaken. At last 
he received a letter from Mr. Windham, and ocular 
proof, that influence” is a valuable assistant to a man 
without opportunity. He had spent two months in the 
great city, vainly hunting a chance and here at last it 
came, through the ‘ ' good word ’* of Mr. Windham. Mr. 
Windham had a personal friend who was a junior mem- 
ber of the firm of North & Co. , wholesale dry goods mer- 
chants, a great house. Windham learned that they had 
recently discharged a foreman shipper whom they 
believed to be dishonest. Therefore, after saying the 
“ good word ” for John, he wrote him, to call at the 
office of the Company. John promptly did so and ob- 
tained employment in the place made vacant by the 
discharged man. A week later Mr. Windham sailed 
to Europe for his health, returning a year later. The 
man discharged for supposed dishonesty, had been su- 
perintending the packing and shipping of their goods, 


134 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


had kept the delivery books of that department of the 
business of North & Co., and had been held personally 
answerable for all errors or misconduct of the assist- 
ants in his department. 

John was capable of mind and muscle, and very glad 
to employ both ; as he did, to the entire satisfaction of 
the firm. Ten dollars a week was little enough pay 
for the services of a “ good hand ” — as John was. But 
since he was unfamiliar with the work, it was a kind- 
ness on their part, that they let him try to fill the posi- 
tion, and he was very glad to have the opportunity. 
Our hero worked, and earned and saved from waste, 
dollars for the firm, for which they paid him pennies, 
and even less. He thought they would learn his worth 
to them, and reward his work ; but they did not. How 
could they know .? They knew that no complaints of 
waste or error came to the office from John’s depart- 
ment. But greater affairs occupied the attention of 
the members of the firm of North & Co. They never 
knewhow John struggled, and what he made or saved, 
which was to them clear gain. No one ran to the office 
with information of that sort. 

The office of a great business house is not unlike the 
throne of Royalty, in that it is the center arou7id which 
intrigues, ambitions, calumnies, slanders and enmities 
wriggle and crawl and hiss and rattle. So much is un- 
seen and unknown by the powers that be. So much 
of the knowledge that comes to the employers of men 
is only upon information and belief. Competing work- 
men have so much to gain by making direct or insinu- 
ating misrepresentations of their fellow-workmen — so 
much to gain by pulling others down, keeping them 
down, and building on their ruins, that they are ever 


JUST PLAIN POLKS. 


135 


watchful to club down the one next in front, in order to 
walk over or into his place and get greater reward. 
Ever ready to stab the man alongside, or next behind, 
lest he be or try to be advanced to the place they want, or 
the pay they need, or perchance the place they occupy. 

A man so innocent of the knowledge of the social 
characteristics of human nature, as to go to his em- 
ployer boasting of his own worth, would surely and 
properly be discredited as a braggart ; and it is equally 
certain that no fellow-struggler for greater honors or 
pay, would sound his praise for him. Employers of 
men have little to gain by seeking correct information 
in regard to a well-doing hand, for such knowledge of 
facts, and such a revelation of the knowledge, to the 
hand, would only make greater drafts upon the con- 
science of the employers and encourage greater demands 
upon his wealth, for increased wages. Thus the noble 
work and faithful services of the most worthy men are 
often unknown “at the office,” while the cunning, 
intriguing, and unworthy, trample their way to the 
top, there to serenely wallow in honors and profits. 

When the Christmas holidays arrived, the firm sent 
to John, a white envelope, containing a ten-dollar note 
and “Merry Christmas.” They simply had not been 
obliged to call John to account for any blunders or 
mischievous consequences of his work ; that is all. That 
is all they knew of him, and they showed their appre- 
ciation of that knowledge, by a present. And beside 
if they sent him a present of ten dollars, he would not be 
so likely to ask for a salary increase of a dollar a week, 
in which case even this ten dollars might have a saving 
power of forty-two dollars a year ; for they did not want 
the man to quit their service, from whom no evil report 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


136 

had come to disturb their more important affairs. They 
would certainly advance him a dollar if he demanded 
it, but if ten dollars closed his mouth for a year, there 
was a good business consideration in making such 
a Christmas investment. John was not precisely an 
average man or his fate would surely have been worse. 
He could see through a millstone with so large a hole 
in its center. He began to get his eyes opened and 
to use them a little. He went to the office with the ten- 
dollar bill and asked to see the junior partner who sent 
him to the head of the house and to this personage John 
said in his frank, farmer fashion : 

“Mr. North, I suppose I ought to be thankful for the 
ten dollars you sent me as a Christmas present, but 
really I am not, for we know so very little of each other, 
that I cannot see in it a token of affectionate regard, and 
1 do not want to feel thankful for charity. I am not a 
helpless man. And I only want reward for what I do. 
As the sum is too small to estimate as an increase of 
annual salary, I prefer that you should take it back 
and give me instead, the increased wages which I earn, 
deserve, and have perhaps over confidently expected 
to get.’' 

Once again, John was a surprise to a business man. 
Precisely as that other employer of men had looked at 
John when he declined to take “Billy's place” and 
crowd out the man with the fresh sorrow and sick 
wife, so Mr. North looked at Farmer John now, when 
he refused the ten-dollar note. He looked curiously, 
quizzically, at the honest, firm face, and hesitated a 
half minute before he spoke. Then, he said : 

“Let’s see, what is your name? What is your 
work ? ” 


fUST PLA/N FOLKS. 


137 

“John Hardhand. I am attending to the packing 
and shipping.” 

“Ah, yes. Well, John, you are one of five em- 
ployees from whom no reports of mistakes or miscon- 
duct have come, and are on the list of names to each 
of which by my order, and for that good reason, a ten- 
dollar bill was sent.” And after a short pause, he con- 
tinued, “Then you want an increase of pay, do you, 
John .? Our profits, the last year, considering what we 
usually expect to make, and considering the amount of 
capital we have invested in the business, were very 
small. We cannot afford to raise salaries much at the 
present time. You stick to your work, John. I want 
you to stay with us. We are suited with your services 
and will make the matter of pay all right as soon as 
business picks up a little.” 

“ Since you seem to be interested in me, IMr. North, 
let me say to you frankly, I am nearly thirty years old ; 
a man, not a boy, and I must be laying aside and ac- 
cumulating while I am at my best and not be eating up 
the savings of other years. I have engaged to marry a 
noble and worthy woman. I need and want a home. 
I cannot get it with an income of ten dollars a week. 
I know that I earn much more. I would be glad to 
get more.” 

“Why, John, you ought not think of getting mar- 
ried, and running a home. You men are so rash. It 
would stagger you to know what it costs to keep up a 
home and provide for a family and all that. I know 
all about it. Take my advice, don't get married.” 

“Would you mind giving me a hint of the cost of 
maintaining your home ? ” asked John. 

“Well, I can't tell exactly, but I have thirty-two 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


^38 

thousand dollars invested in the building lot, twenty- 
eight thousand in the house, and I suppose about ten 
thousand in furniture. Interest, taxes and repairs on 
these three items, at, say, ten per cent, amounts to 
seven thousand a year. Clothing, food and expenses 
of that sort, say about as much more, or perhaps a 
total of fifteen thousand dollars a year would cover the 
whole ; unless we consider our summer home at the 
Branch, and the trips to the mountains by Mrs. North 
and the girls. You don’t need any nonsense of that sort. 
You could be just as comfortable and happy on a couple 
of thousand a year, probably, but of course we could not 
afford to pay two thousand dollars a year or anything 
like that for the work you are doing for us at present. 
What do you want, John .? ” 

“I don’t expect to get what I want at present. I 
have told you what I need. I want nothing I do not 
earn. I don’t expect that, but I do expect an increase 
of pay ; a little larger share of what I earn. I ought 
to get twenty dollars a week. I will ask for fifteen 
now, and then if your business profits increase, you 
will pay me twenty.” 

After a little hesitation, Mr. North replied : 

“ I will allow you twelve dollars a week now, John, 
and, if you continue to give as good satisfaction in the 
future as you have in the past, I will raise it to fifteen 
dollars, in March.” 

“Thank you,” said John. 

“ Here, take the ten dollars,” said Mr. North. 

“ I’d rather not.” 

“O, fiddlesticks, John. Here, put that in your 
pocket,” thrusting the bill into John’s hand, “ and if you 
don’t want to keep it, give it, for her Christmas present. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


139 


to ‘the noble and worthy woman/ but don t get mar- 
ried, John, don’t get married, you foolish man.” 

“ Mr. North ! Mr. North !” called a junior partner 
from the farther side of the office, and Mr. North 
walked across to him, and thence to the cashier’s desk 
do sign a check. Two men had been standing there, be- 
hind John’s chair, who had been unnoticed by either 
Mr. North or John — awaiting their chance to talk to the 
“boss.” Two men who, unnoticed, had heard every 
word of the conversation between Mr. North and John 
Hardhand, and, fortune of evil fates ! both of them 
were from John’s department. 

John walked away in a dreaming, preoccupied man- 
ner. He was much cast down. He felt like a man who 
had shot at a moose and killed a mouse. But he 
picked up his mouse and walked sadly back to his 
work. 

Twelve dollars now, a possible fifteen after March ; 
three months hence. This, upon conditions not en- 
tirely certain. Whether he continued to give entire 
satisfaction, depended partly upon good fortune, partly 
upon the untried ability of his assistants, who were 
frequently being changed ; and, even more, did it de- 
pend upon the good-will of every one, and the unself- 
ishness of their service, and the motives that should 
lead or divert them. John had already with vigorous 
earnestness inflated so many balloons, decorated them 
with the brilliant colors of a seemingly-assured future, 
watched them mount up a little way with swelling 
heart of hope, only to see 'them burst and fall flat to 
the earth in utter hopeless worthlessness, that he in- 
flated balloons no more ; builtmo more castles of air. 
He measured and estimated such hard facts as came 


140 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


to him, including the chances of defeat. He began to 
count his resources after this manner: “Mr. North 
does not and will not know the value of my work for him. 
He only knows me as the hired hand, who so far 
has simply attended to the shipping and packing of so 
many goods, and has in the performance of that simple 
service made no mistakes that have been considered 
worth calling to the attention of his employer.’' How 
many men able to do that much were every week, 
offering themselves at ten dollars a week or even less .? 
John could well understand that with such knowledge 
of facts as Mr. North possessed, he might well and prop- 
erly feel, in all kindness, that in raising John’s wages two 
dollars a week he was both self-sacrificing and gener- 
ous ; and that the “ fifteen dollars a week after March,” 
which he had conditionally promised, was his volun- 
tary gift to John ; a prize, as it were, to encourage him to 
the most painstaking avoidance of mistakes, and that it 
should also warm John’s heart towards him, as to an 
employer with some heart of pity, who willingly took 
interest in his servants. 

If John had been very much younger, a trifle less 
observant of what had already come under his notice 
or a trifle more stupid, he might, probably would, have 
been quite delighted with the unusual kindliness and 
easy familiarity of his employer. And estimating : 
“ three months more, then fifteen dollars a week ; then, 
three months more, twenty ; three more, twenty-five, 
and so on,” with the blind hopefulness of youth, he 
would have foreseen an income of three thousand six 
hundred and forty dollars a year, from such a ratio of 
increase, at the end of three years, and would have 
been exercising his mind with the problem how best to 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


41 


invest it, or to most joyously spend it. Quite contrary 
to all such hopeful speculation, John dismissed from 
his mind all consideration of the twenty dollars which 
he had asked to be paid, and which Mr. North had 
silently ignored. He was wondering, if nothing should 
happen to prevent it, and he did at last secure a salary 
of fifteen dollars a week, if then, Thetty would think it 
safe to marry on such a salary ; and if she would feel 
that he ought to think so himself. He was troubled to 
determine whether or not it would be wise to take the 
risk of providing a home for so good a wife, and of 
supporting her comfortably ; if he could properly care 
for the children sure to come to them and that ought 
to be welcome ; if he could make the needful pro- 
vision for sickness, the helplessness of old age, and the 
expense attending death. And John, soliloquized, “A 
poor man cannot afford to die. Decent funerals are a 
luxury to drain his resources, put him into debt, and 
only add to his troubles.” 

John realized how very many unemployed men 
were anxiously waiting to secure even such an oppor- 
tunity, such a position, as his. Wondered how soon 
they would secure it. And, if some one equally 
capable, but more needy than himself, should offer to 
do the work for less wages, if Mr. North would not 
hire the cheaper man instead. How small and uncer- 
certain a chance, indeed, was his ; if, if, if, if ! How 
many were the fs that threatened him. He be- 
began to realize the fact that he had not a safe founda- 
tion for his foot on this wide earth. 

‘'Blessed are the poor,” for theirs is the kingdom of 
earth P No : not now ; not just now. 

What a terrifying host of contemptible one-eyed, two- 


142 


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lettered little Ifs there are, standing about him, waiting 
to club down the ambitions of the man who has been 
cast into the hell of poverty. 

Ifs. Those little devils of uncertainty and insecurity. 
They are with us all ; but they just swarm about the 
homeless, the landless, the poor. When the lamed 
traveler falls, they deluge him with their devilish atten- 
tions ; like flies around the footsore sheep, they 
come, to use every effort and hurry on the coming 
catastrophe. Father, forgive us ! Men ! Brothers ! 
Have mercy on the poor. 

Faithfully, heroically, John Hardhand struggled on 
toward .the ray of hope. That possible three dollars 
advance, was a straw to grasp ; a straw to help float 
the landless man, tossed into the sea of uncertainty 
with the homeless millions of men. He struck out 
bravely for that ; perhaps it would float him to port. 
We shall see. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


143 


CHAPTER XV. 

ACCIDENT, INTRIGUE, AND CRIME. 

On the day, the hour, that John Hardhand went to 
the office of North & Co. to return the white envelope 
and ten-dollar bank-note to his employer, it was dis- 
covered in the shipping room that the stock was short 
of a particular make and pattern of “ French prints," or 
calico. 

A short, florid little man remarked to a pale, quiet man 
beside him, “I say, Jim, come up to the office with me. 
I want to send you down to the custom-house to get a 
bonded warehouse order and to pay the duty, while I 
run down to the bonded warehouse and tell Driggs to 
get the cases out and ready for our truck. We must get 
Penfield’s order off before noon, or the old Farmer will 
get his back up and do it himself." 

The two men promptly laid aside their aprons, put on 
their coats, and hurried to the office. They entered 
quietly and stood still, on the thick rugs back of Mr. 
North’s chair, awaiting their turn to talk with the indi- 
vidual whom they habitually styled “ the boss." 

Neither did their employer nor did John Hardhand — 
so earnestly were they engaged — notice these two men 
or know of their presence. 

As John, with his back still towards them, arose and 
walked out of the room, the short maa stepped up 
quickly to Mr. North, quite as if he had just then hastily 


144 


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entered, and made his errand known. This Mr. Wil- 
liam Short and his companion promptly left the 
office again with the custom-house order, and with a 
knowledge of John Hardhand’s plans, and the relations 
between their foreman and the ‘ ‘ head of the house ” 
which augured only harm and evil to the interests of 
“ The Farmer.’’ 

If the reader is even slightly familiar with the ambi- 
tions and intrigues of workmen in a great commercial 
business, he will appreciate the danger without further 
discussion of it. This was knowledge not intended for 
these assistants in John’s department, unexpected by 
them, gained by a mere chance, unnoticed ; a secret. 
So much the worse for John, so much the better for 
them. So much the less would suspicion of evil pur- 
pose color their acts and plans for the *future, which 
were inspired by this surreptitiously gained knowledge. 

About two weeks after this incident, John, in prepara- 
tion for a short absence, arranged the work of his de- 
partment as completely as possible, so as to relieve 
his assistants from most of the responsible and per- 
plexing detail ; leaving one of the two men referred 
to in charge, to look after the execution of his plans and 
instructions, he took the train for Sconset to spend a 
holiday week vacation — Christmas and New Year. 

It transpired that Mr. North remained at business 
that holiday week, and the junior partners went to 
their New England homes to recreate. Mr. North was 
about the place that week more than he had been in 
any week before for many years. He often dropped 
in at the packing and shipping department. He 
chatted frequently with the man who was temporarily 
in charge of John's department. Mr. North investi- 


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145 


gated the methods and system of the department with 
deep interest, while this man explained them, with 
all the assurance and modest exultation one might 
expect from him if he had been its originator. It 
did not pain him to discover that North appeared to 
see in him the author of so perfect a system. Mr. North 
was really delighted with what this man called “our ” 
system, with an emphasis on “our’' that plainly ex- 
pressed “the system of Shorty and North,” and plainly 
excluded John Hardhand. This little man accepted the 
high compliments which Mr. North paid the depart- 
ment with as much relish as if they belonged to him. 
Indeed, so blinding to right reason is the narrow thought 
born of selfish greed, that it is altogether probable this 
fellow did begin to believe the lie he was enacting, 
and in some sense, at least, to feel that the system was 
his because he was using it ; as much his as John's, at 
least, or more his, just at this time. 

Mr. North mentally determined to recommend this 
man’s excellent judgment and methods to John’s con- 
sideration on his return, and to suggest that John make 
of him a sort of first assistant, etc., etc., etc. A day 
or two before John’s return, Mr. North was passing 
through the shipping department and inquired of Mr. 
Short, “ How do you succeed with your work during 
the absence of Mr. Hardhand ? ” 

“Oh, I can’t complain. All right. No trouble at 
all. Wouldn’t know that he was away only, when he 
is here, my work is interfered with a good deal, and 
he’s dreadful bossy sometimes. ” 

That charge against John by Short was a deliberate, 
ungarnished falsehood. John Hardhand gave his in- 
structions in a simple and direct way, and never offen- 


10 


146 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


sively. If an assistant did not directly do the work 
asked of him, John would at once do it himself, 
and thus put the man to shame. It was shame for 
themselves and not fear of John that enforced the 
obedience of his assistants. 

In the mass of mail for North & Co., there came 
one day a letter from Nordlinger, Harmon & Co., 
Chicago, 111., and it read as follows : 


‘ ‘ Gentlemen, 

“Your invoice of yesterday has reached us, being for 
your first shipment on our order of December 1 6 th. The 
Diamond Mills prints are not up to standard. Please 
cancel the remainder of our order for them, and sub- 
stitute ‘Clifton Mdls, assorted patterns,’ for the balance 
half case due. I will try to work off the Diamond Mills 
already shipped us, but we should be allowed a dis- 
count rebate because of their inferior quality which any 
novice can see. 

“ Very truly yours, etc., etc., 

“ Nordlinger, Harmon & Co.” 


This half case of Diamond prints, together with other 
goods for them was already packed and marked for 
Nordlinger & Harmon when the countermanding letter 
reached North & Co. 

It was the second day of January ; John had re- 
turned from Sconset. He directed that a case of 
Clifton Mills be opened and those goods used to replace 
the Diamond Mills which he ordered to be taken out 
of the case for Nordlinger & Harmon. As the items to 
fill the order were counted, and laid aside to be put in 


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147 


the case for shipment to that concern, John had care- 
fully checked each in the order book. In passing now, 
he ran them over with his eye a second time, and in 
doing so noticed a piece that had a box-nail tear in it, and 
a little rust stain. This he picked out and threw on 
to the counter, directing a man to open the other stock- 
case of Clifton Mills, and take out a perfect bolt to re- 
place this one, put the damaged one into the full case 
and mark on the case : ‘‘ One bolt damaged,’’ and then 
nail up again. This man, after taking out the sound 
bolt of prints required, threw it on the counter beside 
the damaged one — the torn bolt — which John had 
thrown out. Another packer pushed the two bolts along, 
to make room for himself at the counter, and in doing 
so, turned the torn bolt over, damaged side down, and 
accidentally transposed the two, while the packer was 
smoothing the case lining. When the packer turned- 
about, he therefore picked up and put back into the full 
case the same perfect roll which he had just now taken 
out, without even looking for the tear, and nailed it up 
again, supposing it was the damaged bolt, marked the 
case: ‘'One bolt damaged,” stenciled it, Kraft & Co., 
New Orleans, made out a shipping receipt, checked off 
their order, and in twenty minutes that case went 
off on a truck and aboard the steamer of the New 
Orleans S. S. Line. He returned to the case intended 
for Nordlinger & Harmon, packed and nailed it up, 
forgetting the bolt of calico on the counter, made out 
the shipping receipt and called the truckman. Then 
chancing to look toward the counter, he saw the 
omitted bolt of calico, picked it up, discovered the 
tear, and that it was the same bolt which John had 
ordered taken out and exchanged, and alas, now, the 


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full case was gone. Should he open the case and put 
back the damaged roll for Nordlinger & Harmon, 
against John’s orders, or let it go “short,” or what 
should he do ? Vexed at himself, having no sound bolt 
now with which to replace the damaged one, for there 
was not another case of Clifton prints in the House, 
he cursed his own blundering stupidity and was pon- 
dering some scheme to escape the dilemma which 
might cost him his situation, when he overheard John 
saying to a boy, “Tell the truckman to back right 
up and put on that case for Nordlinger & Harmon.” 

“ Here, Shorty,” he said addressing the man who had 
made the blunder, and who at this instant saw his 
way of escape, “here, you run up to the office and 
get this warehouse order signed, then go down to 
Driggs’ Stores with it. Tell Driggs’ man to get down 
the cases right away, for our truck will be after them 
in twenty minutes.” 

Shorty ran up to the office, and as he came back 
with the signed order, and passed the packing counter, 
he caught up the torn bolt of calico and jammed it 
hastily down into a great mass of loose paper under the 
counter, then sped away. The case for Nordlinger, 
Harmon & Co. was sent out short one bolt of calico ; but 
this Chicago firm was very careful and scrutinizing in 
its business transactions, so much so, that the 
employees of North & Co. spoke of them as “chronic 
kickers.” There was a business judgment-day coming, 
when there would be required an explanation of this 
shortage, a hereafter to be provided for ; and Shorty 
pondered to himself, “What shall I do when those 
Chicago Sheeneys write back, ‘One roll short ? ’ ” He 
hoped some careless receiving clerk at Chicago might 


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149 


pass the shortage, unnoticed; but that was too slight 
a straw to trust for safety. 

Shorty was worried. He almost wished a fire might 
break out. Just a little fire, in the packing-room ; so 
that amid the confusion of the little ruin, his blunder 
might hide. He discovered lint and a stumpy pencil 
and two or three match-ends in his just-discoA^’ered-to- 
be-dirty vest pocket, and instantly emptied the dirty 
debris onto the packing-room floor. O, if that torn bolt 
of calico were only out of the place ; burned, sunk in 
the sea, anywhere but under the packing-room counter. 
He hurried back to the packing counter, shoved his 
hand away dowm into the paper heap under it, pretend- 
ing to rest his hand there while he searched on the 
floor for the knife he had purposely dropped. There 
still lay the bolt of calico. His hand struck the hard 
dangerous fact. He felt a bit easier, and drew a long 
breath, as he noticed that no one was watching him. 
He had feared that some one’s eyes were on him. 
When he remembered that the store closed at six, and 
only the watchman remained, alone, he was more 
alarmed than ever. At that time he, the watchman, 
cleared up the papers, swept the floors and brought 
tidiness and order out of the wreckage and “beach- 
drift” of business. How could Shorty get that bolt 
of cloth out of his way to-day .? 

Each workingman had his own little clothes-closet, 
numbered, locked, and each provided with a key. In 
this he kept his lunch box, his hat, hung his street 
clothes while he was at work, and his overalls, jumper, 
and apron when the day’s work was finished. At noon, 
the workmen all went down into the warm engine-room 
to eat lunch ; the only place, by the way, in which 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


150 

they were permitted to smoke. This day, Shorty, pre- 
tending to complete some unfinished work, remained 
after the others had gone below. He ran over and 
hastily unlocked his closet door, stepped to the shipping 
door and looked about to assure himself that no watch- 
ful eye was upon him ; then he darted back, caught up 
the bolt of calico, put it in his closet, locked the door, 
and hurried off to the engine-room with his lunch. 
Shorty laughed very easily that day. He was wonder- 
fully jocular ; prompt with repartee, and had an almost 
hysterical air of excitement. - One of the men, in a 
bantering manner, remarked: 

“ Guess Shorty’s been eating pickles.” 

To which Shorty replied, “Too darned poor to eat 
pickles, I am, been a eatin’ green persimmons of my 
own pickin’.” 

Which remark was allegorically quite true. Shorty 
grew daily more petulant, irritable, and even impu- 
dent to John. John saw that for some reason, he could 
not imagine what. Shorty felt and acted hatefully to- 
ward him. John, therefore, exercised even more than 
his usual kindly good-fellowship toward the man, but 
with no avail. It seemed apparent that John’s kindness 
and goodness only angered him. It really did do so, — 
and why } 

Shorty had become alarmed as the time drew near, 
when they ought to hear from Nordlinger, Harmon 
& Co. One day, going to his own closet for tobacco, 
he had chanced to discover that the key to John’s 
closet door had been left in the keyhole. There was no 
one in the passage-way at the time. Shorty took the 
bolt of prints from his own closet, wrapped it up in 
paper and string he found there. Then he ran with it 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. ' 


to John’s closet, opened the door, put the bolt in there 
on its end in the corner, close against the wall, 
and pulled the skirts of an old, unused overcoat over it, 
so as to completely hide the bolt ; locked the door, 
leaving the key still in the keyhole as he had found it, 
and took pains, a few minutes later, to say to another 
fellow, “ What Jay is that, who has left his key in his 
closet door ? ” 

“Why that is number eight, the foreman’s closet,” 
the fellow replied. And he took the key out and ran 
with it to John who thanked him but said he had 
left it there because he had a hole in his pocket, had 
already dropped it out twice that morning, and he 
feared he might lose it. He was not afraid that “ the 
boys as ” he familiarly called them, would steal his watch 
nor any of his clothing, and the pocketbook was about 
emptied of money. 

I think that you, my reader, have now discovered 
why Shorty, since his blunder and crime, had acted so 
unkindly toward John Hardhand. 

There is always, for a wrong-doer, who has know- 
ingly wronged another person, a tempting desire to 
offend the wronged one, excite his anger, and make, 
of that anger, petty excuse for the injustice. 

If your friend owes you money, and does not desire to 
pay it, he straightway begins to scandalize you among 
your friends, and to personally abuse you. 


152 


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CHAPTER XVI. 

A HOLIDAY VISIT TO SCONSET. THETTY AND MAGGIE IN NEW 

YORK. THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN IN FOURTEENTH STREET. 

SHADOWED. 

Shall we not also consider for a moment, the history 
which John was making at Sconset, during the week 
in which Shorty was plotting his overthrow in the Dry 
Goods Jobbing House of North & Co. 

On that day preceding Christmas, when John had 
left undone no good thing which could make easier and 
simpler the work of his assistants, when he had made 
all needful provisions for the safety of his employer’s 
interests, for he had a superstitious sense of impending 
catastrophe — when he had bought a few presents, 
packed his great satchel, shaken hands with all “the 
boys ” and finally gone aboard the train ; when he 
realized that he was going home, going toward Sconset, 
— though he had so little to comfort him or to be 
thankful for, though even hope held out so little prom- 
ise — yet his heart swelled with pleasant emotions at 
the thought of the joy of “Home,” and mother and 
Thetty, — the sweetness and restfulness of it all. 

He had room in his great chest for only little breaths. 
He gasped. Tears were in his eyes. And he gazed out 
of the car windows at the fields and forests fiying by, 
with a piteous expression on his face, so mixed and 
confused were his emotions of joy and agony. A fall 
of light dry snow covered the hard frozen ground, and 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


153 


the smart cutters and flying horses and cheerily ringing 
bells made jolly welcome to John’s eyes and ears as 
the train rolled up to Sconset Station and he hurried out. 
Paul was there, awaiting him with the cutter, and 
Thetty and Maggie and Candace. The girls all caught 
at him and kissed him as if they had a right, and pulled 
his gripsack out of his hand, laughed and chatted 
and almost cried, talked so much, so rapidly and in 
such confusion that it would require a phonograph to 
catch it, and even then no transcribing pen could ever 
write it out. They interrupted John, and one another 
with perfect recklessness. No single sentence was 
quite completed amid the happy babel. When we at- 
tempt to express the inexpressible it must needs be in 
confused, unintelligible 'utterances. But faces, gest- 
ures and tones, said plainly enough, “We are all very 
happy.” They clambered into the cutter in the most 
informal confusion, laughing and chattering ; and John 
was as frolicsome as the others. 

Thetty remained at Mr. Hardhand’sto tea. Maggie, 
Candace and Paul drove back to Mr. Vick’s. After 
supper, John and Thetty walked up to her home ; Mrs. 
Vick gave him an almost motherly kiss, Farmer Vick 
roared a welcome and later on, John and Thetty were 
left alone in the parlor to visit by themselves. Thetty 
crept into his lap and put her arm around his neck. 
She told though she need not, for the hundredth time, 
how glad she was to have him back again. They 
talked freely, and then, for the first time, Thetty 
learned what John had passed through in his struggle, or 
at least a part of it, and she sobbed in sympathy 
for John, and for the poor man whose dead baby and 
sick wife stood one day between John and his chance. 


154 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


“ Don’t you believe, John, that you could do better 
up here at Scarborough ? ” suggested Thetty. 

‘‘It may be I might,” John replied ; “but I am sure 
of my place with North & Co., or pretty sure, and I’m 
afraid of those' big manufacturing monopolists at Scar- 
borough. Mr. Riff, Mr. Opolee, and such men are 
hard masters. I know them, too, and so it wouldn’t 
be easy to let them trample me under, without fighting 
back. ” 

“ I don’t care,” said Thetty, a little impatiently, 
“ you’d be right here where you’d have friends 
to come to, and sympathy, and love. Pa had a 
brother, a year or two older than himself, who 
went down to New York a few years before I 
was born. He married a sweet woman, and was 
very prosperous and happy for a year or two. Father 
visited them there, two or three times. They had one 
child, a daughter. After my uncle lost his wife, he 
had ‘ bad luck ’ as pa calls it, lost his work, lost his 
property, lost his courage, lost his reputation, drank 
himself into misery and beggary, — and, lost his life. I 
always said and believed it was for lack of friends and 
love and a home and unselfish advice. The little girl 
was five or six years old when she was orphaned, and 
we have never learned what became of her. I presume 
she also died. Pa never talks about Uncle William 
without the tears coming into his eyes, so we rarely 
mention his name. I think there are as good oppor- 
tunities in Scarborough as in a great city, and fewer 
dangers. 

“ Ah, Thetty, at Scarborough there might be only the 
greater shame and the more bitter humiliation of defeat 
for me, in the presence of those whose love and whose 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


155 


respect is to me, more than full compensation for all I 
may have to silently suffer in the great city. No, 
Thetty, I had best stick to North & Co., at least until I 
am sure of a better place.” 

“Let stalk no more then, now, John, of that sad 
side of life, but make the most of our holiday and be 
happy while we can. ” 

The two lovers billed and cooed, and gossiped over 
Sconset news, until nearly eleven o’clock, when John 
went back to his father’s house, feeling so light-hearted 
and happy, that New York and Scarborough, and the 
troublers and the troubled were quite out of mind. O, 
how deep and sweet and restful was his sleep that 
night in mother’s dear old farm-house bed ! “Bless 
her,” he said, as he dropped off to sleep, “ Bless her.” 

That week was a continuous feast and frolic. John 
declared he was getting so enamored of play, he would 
be spoiled if his vacation were prolonged. That he even 
now began to feel a dread of going back to work. 
Really, it was not the work John dreaded, though he did 
shrink from going back, it was the dependent position, 
the insecurity, the uncertainty of it, that he feared. 
So full of his own anxieties and cares was John Hard- 
hand that they absorbed his attention and filled his 
mind, and strange as it seems to us, he scarcely thought 
a second time, of Thetty’s uncle ; nor did he mention 
to any of the Vicks, — if he had thought of it at all at 
this time, — the vision of Thetty’s double, in Fourteenth 
Street. Certainly he had not thought now of any relation 
between the face that had fascinated and frightened 
him, and this face that he loved. For some reason, 
unaccountable to himself, the face of the woman for 
whom he had no name, was as that of a mysterious 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


156 

being with no positive, material associations. Her 
blasted life, a fate, possible to even so good a soul as 
Thetty Vick ; the thought fascinated and frightened 
him. He did not associate it with any real existence, 
or with kinship to any mortal. He returned to New 
York the evening of New Year’s day, and an interesting 
New Year’s beginning was meted out to him as we 
shall shortly see. 

Two days after John’s return to the city, Thetty and 
Maggie went to New York to do shopping; some- 
thing they had never done but once before, and it 
happened this wise : Mr. Vick had given them a Christ- 
mas present of money in crisp new bills, sufficient 
to buy each a silk dress. They wanted also, laces, 
materials for new hats, and other women’s dainties. 
They discussed the matter with John and determined 
that they could save the amount of their fares, and 
something more, by buying in New York. And an- 
other fact, quite as important to the artistic feminine 
mind, they could see there the newest styles in dress 
and adornment ; could elevate their tastes and gain 
knowledge by the use of their eyes, as they could not 
in quaint old Sconset or Scarborough. The girls could 
not be prepared in time to go with John. So “awfully ” 
much, have women to do, in their preparation to face 
a critical female world. John left home on the second, 
and the girls on the fourth of January. John awaited 
them at the Forty-second Street depot, escorted them 
to Earle’s, secured a room for them, and in the evening 
took them to the Academy of Music to hear Denman 
Thompson in the “ Old Homestead.” After the play, 
the three went to a cafe for a luncheon ; a night din- 
ner. As they were walking through Fourteenth Street 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


157 


laughing, chatting and so exceedingly happy, under 
the bright glare of the electric lights, there came toward 
them, a figure and face that made John’s heart start 
with a jump. It was “She,” the woman without a 
name. Maggie and Thetty, one on each arm of their 
escort, made a bright and happy picture. ‘‘She” 
came directly toward them, gazing curiously into their 
faces. The girls both saw her ; but hoped John had 
not. They recognized her likeness to Thetty. A 
terrible truth flashed through their minds. John de- 
termined to keep his secret from them. He feigned 
abstraction ; pretended not to notice the woman, and 
as he felt the hand of his affianced clutch his arm 
spasmodically, he turned his eyes to Thetty. Her face 
flushed, paled ; she looked searchingly at him. He be- 
trayed no emotion. She was spared humiliation, for 
she was deceived. John had for very pity’s sake 
acted another lie, because of that woman. Both 
Thetty and Maggie were greatly disturbed, and it 
was impossible to conceal it nor did they earnestly try 
to do so since John, as they thought, had no suspicion 
of their discovery. They were convinced, at once, 
that this was the lost cousin ; they also perceived her 
social position and character. John immediately re- 
called to them some of the funny sayings and doings 
of Joshua Whitcomb, of the two “old boys” Ci and 
Seth, and provoked much laughter daring their pleasant 
lunch and their leisurely-taken walk down Broadway 
and through Canal Street to their hotel. But Thetty’s 
laugh had a nervous, hysterical ring, unlike the bird- 
like tones of her laughter before that incident in Four- 
teenth Street. 

The “ strange woman ” had moved aside as they 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


158 

met her, had demurely passed them by ; but imme- 
diately turned and followed them, unnoticed. She saw 
them enter the restaurant, and waited on the opposite 
side of the street until they came out. She followed 
them at a distance, in the shadows, down Broadway, 
saw them enter and disappear in the hotel. Twenty 
minutes later, a lady wearing a lace net veil (it was 
“She,’' the strange woman), entered Earle’s Hotel, in 
company with a fine-looking, smooth-faced gentleman, 
went directly to the registry book, looked over the 
arrivals and found the following entry : 

“Misses Maggie and Thetty Vick, Sconset, Conn.,” 
and beneath that written in penciling, the memoran- 
dum : 

“Guests of John Hardhand.” 

This woman asked the clerk if Mr. and Mrs. Win- 
throp Moore, of Hastings, New York (fictitious names) 
had “arrived,” to which after looking over the registry 
book, he answered, “No, ma’am;” and the two 
strangers walked away. Mr. North gave John permis- 
sion to go next day, with the Sconset “good little 
women ” a-shopping. They visited all the great stores 
in Sixth Avenue, Broadway, Fourteenth and Twenty- 
third Streets, and had such a jolly and profitable gain 
in it all, for both body and mind, that when John 
kissed them after putting them aboard the cars, with 
their bags and parcels and happy faces, “She,” the 
twelve dollar salary, the cares and troubles were, for 
the moment, quite out of his mind. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


IS9 


CHAPTER XVII. 

JOHN HARDHAND’s ARREST. 

The letter from Nordlinger, Harmon & Co., of 
Chicago, at last reached the office of North & Co. 
The stock record for that day was looked up. It was 
found that in the morning of the day on which that 
particular Chicago order was shipped, there was one 
and a half cases only of Clifton Mills prints, and that 
on closing the books, at night, there was none at all 
in stock. The delivery books showed that one case 
had been shipped to Kraft & Co., New Orleans, and a 
half case shipped to the Chicago firm. They imme- 
diately wrote to New Orleans, inquiring if the case 
contents were all right as per bill sent ; answer 
came : 

“ Yes, except that we did not find the damaged roll 
as mentioned on the bill and marked on the case. 
Presume the damage is trivial, and that it is not worth 
our while to make a rebate claim. Thanks for the 
notice, etc.” 

A single piece of cotton prints was no considerable 
loss to North & Co., but the neglect that would lose a 
roll of prints would as easily lose a piece of silk. Or 
the envying greed that would yield to the temptation 
of a piece of calico, would only the more promptly 
indulge the theft of a roll of velvet. John Hardhand 
was called to the office and sharply reproved for the 


/ 


1 6o JUS T PLAIN FOLKS. 

dereliction. It hurt him, and he could make no ex- 
planation of the mystery. John’s ambitious assistant 
was complimented by Mr. North at the same tim^ 
that John himself was reproved for not having exer- 
cised due care. Saturday came. He was given 
notice that William Short, “Shorty,” would be advanced 
thereafter to a position the same as his own, and he 
was told to consult with “ Shorty ” always and in all 
matters, pertaining to the shipping department. 

John Hardhandsaw surely, now, that the reasonable 
hope of fifteen dollars a week advance after March was 
lost to him. He neither guessed nor presumed, but knew, 
that he had carefully checked over each item of that 
order shipped to Nordlinger, Harmon & Co. The order 
and the shipping book each had his check mark after 
every entry. He knew that the crime or the careless- 
ness was not his own ; and also realized that his own 
presence in the service of North & Co. would be a con- 
tinually threatening danger to the guilty person — who- 
ever he might be. He was convinced there must 
be and would be further treachery, among his assist- 
ants, upon whom he depended for success in the exe- 
cution of his business system and methods ; the men 
whom he not only wished, but was obliged, to trust. 
He was wronged, humiliated, overwhelmed with anx- 
iety, and completely discouraged. In a letter to his 
brother Paul at the time, he expressed the unfortunate 
circumstance and its disastrous consequence, affecting 
himself and his ambitions, thus : 

“ O, my dear brother, this most unfortunate affair 
quite unmans me. With faith in my future, in my 
ability to win advancement ; cheered with the prom- 
ise of even a little more reward for my effort ; 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS, 


i6i 


encouraged by my own dream.s of success ; with the 
mirage of joy, a hopeful life, and the restfulness of 
such employment as I like and choose, to beckon me 
on, I have not sensed the present, nor felt the pain of 
it. For the eyes of faith look up, not down, and, dis- 
tracting the mind from the painful way of life, fill one’s 
heart with the magnificent purpose of life. But when 
hope is denied, the calloused and cracked hands smart. 
They feel clumsy. The joints are stiff. The pain of 
living fills the mind and drowns all other sense ; thrills 
every abraded pulsating nerve with the agony of it all. 
We find it impossible to stand erect ; to straighten 
the back so long and cruelly bent with unrequited toil. 
And, O, the paralysis of despair that threatens ! Despair 
is a terrible master. Must I yield to despair .? ” 

The bolt of calico lost was of too dangerous signifi- 
cance to be forgotten. Bolts of cloth do not evaporate, 
fly through the air, nor walk about the earth. They 
are moved about at the will of intelligent minds, by 
human hands. The private detective of North & Co. 
was told to find the particular hands that had moved a 
particular bolt of missing calico. This detective was 
generally supposed by the employees of North & Co., 
to be a sort of assistant janitor, or an agent of the owner 
of the building ; and indeed he did, on occasion, look 
after and supervise repairs, which supervision served 
the double purpose of care for the small needs of the 
building and of hiding the identity of his real secret 
service, and in that way increasing the utility. He set 
about his work without attracting John’s attention in 
the least. Passing and repassing, he watched all move- 
ments, all “hands” in John’s department. 

Shorty, Shorty only, seemed to have detected the 

II 


i 62 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


detective, and to give evidence of that discovery by ex- 
ercising an unusually quiet dignity, and an uncom- 
monly benign fraternity toward Mr. Karl. As this 
man, the detective, walked rapidly through the room 
one day with eyes down-looking, as if absorbed in 
thought, he whirled about instantly, after going a few 
feet out from the door, and caught Shorty peering out,, 
watching him, with a face of absolute terror. In the 
afternoon of that day, the detective came with a 
carpenter to take up the closet floors so as to get at a 
conveniently disordered gaspipe. He pointed to Shorty’s 
closet, and told the man to take that floor up first ; 
Sent the carpenter to get the keys, and told him to re- 
member which person each key was obtained from, so as 
to return them without confusion. As the man opened 
Shorty’s closet, the detective directed him to take out 
all the things and put them on the counter out of his 
way. As he did so the detective carefully watched, 
until the last article was laid aside, and then, with a 
look of disappointment on his face, walked away. He 
did not wait to see the other closet floors removed 
and the gaspipe repaired —if it needed repairing. As 
the carpenter came to each closet in succession, he 
removed all articles from it, before taking up the floor. 
John’s closet was the last of the row. With innocent 
heedlessness he threw John’s clothing onto the counter, 
and the piece of calico, the last item to come out, he 
threw on top of the clothing, and with chisel and 
hammer, attacked the floor. A moment later, Mr. 
North, accompanied by an insurance inspector, in pass- 
ing through the room, noticed the calico, and the 
‘‘ Clifton Mills” brand, and said to the carpenter: 
Where did you get — that ? " 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


163 

The carpenter told him, and Mr. North said, 

‘/Did you tear the paper off where the label shows ? ” 
“Yes, sir; some coffee, or something sticky, had run 
down between the bundle and the wall and stuck it 
fast ; that tore off as I took the bundle out.” 

Mr. North quietly remarked to the carpenter, “You 
go up to the office and take that bolt of calico with 
you. I will be there in a few minutes.” 

Ten minutes later the detective and the carpenter 
were closeted together in Mr. North’s office. The 
detective directed the carpenter to take a wet sponge 
to closet number eight, remove the piece of paper 
that had stuck to the wall and bring it to him ; 
which he did. It fitted the torn hole in the paper that 
enveloped the calico, exactly. Toward evening John 
Hardhand was called to the private office of Mr. North. 
As the latter closed the door and sat down alone with 
John, in the room, a look of pitying sorrow came into 
his face, like the pain of a great disappointment. He 
mentally recalled the satisfied, restful confidence that 
John’s honest face had inspired when they had had 
their first interview, and again when John came to 
return the ten- dollar gift. He recalled John’s frank 
expression of his desires, and the laudable ambition 
to improve his condition. He remembered John’s 
anxiety for the arrival of the time when he might 
marry the good woman whom he loved, and his zeal 
to acquire sufficient resources for the home he needed 
and deserved. Because of those desirable and tempt- 
ing ends, Mr. North was inclined to be less harsh in 
judging the supposed means, to attain so worthy an 
end, and he mentally soliloquized, “After all we are 
but weak creatures, honest only until temptation come% 


164 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


with promise to satisfy our hopes.” He looked gen- 
uinely sad, as, addressing John, he said slowly, 

“John, I am very sorry indeed, to have been forced 
to abandon first, my confidence in your prudent care 
of my interests, and last, but worst of all, to lose my 
confidence in your honesty.” 

“What do you mean, Mr. North } ” 

“I mean that your theft of a few days ago is dis- 
covered, and that the evidences of your guilt are 
complete. You are dismissed at once. But I wish first 
to talk with you, hoping to learn why, and how, you 
were so tempted, and to prevent, if I can, the recurrence 
of such a misfortune to yourself and to others.” 

Startled, wide-eyed, and dazed, John drew a long deep 
breath, a nervous sigh ; his momentary silence and 
visible excitement seemed like a desperate effort at self- 
control. But his tongue loosened again at last, and 
he replied. 

“You startle me with the terrible charge of a crime of 
which I am not guilty, and with the absurd statement 
of existing evidence to prove the cruel falsehood. 1 can 
see at once that my denial will have little influence on 
your judgment, yet for the satisfaction of duty to 
myself I shall speak truly. I declare to you, the in- 
famous charge is as false as the plotting is malicious 
and the evidence impossible.” 

“ Do you, then, refuse to make the confession which 
I had hoped would entitle you to my pity, though it 
made respect for you impossible .? Do you deny the 
theft, — of that piece of calico ? ” 

“Mr. North,” and John sprang to' his feet, “Mr. 
North, theft is a crime I could never commit, sir ! I 
demand an explanation of this miserable calumny.’' 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


“Sit quietly, where you are;” Mr. North rang the 
call bell, and a boy came in, to whom he said, “Tell 
Mr. Karl, and the carpenter with him, to come in 
here. ’’ 

The two entered, the detective bearing the strayed 
piece of “Clifton prints.” 

Mr. North, turning to John, said, “ Hardhand, Nord- 
linger, Harmon & Co. reported that they were a bolt 
of calico short, from the lot shipped to them two 
weeks ago.” And turning to the carpenter, “Car- 
penter, where did you find that bolt of cloth .? ” 

“In number eight closet in the shipping department, 
sir. ” 

“From whom did you obtain the key to it V’ 

“ From this man you call Hardhand.” 

“ Hardhand, said North, turning to John, “is 
number eight your closet ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Did you give this man the key to it, this morn- 
ing .? ” 

“ I did, sir ; but he lies if he says he found that bolt 
of cloth in my closet.” 

“Not so fast, Hardhand. Here, Karl,” turning to 
the detective, “what evidence have you that this car- 
penter tells the truth .? ” 

“This piece of paper,” — holding up the bit, — “I, 
myself, saw sticking fast, to the wall of closet number 
eight, Karl replied, and I sent the carpenter to remove 
it from the wall and bring it to me. He did not know 
why I wanted it, or for what purpose, and I find it to be 
the piece torn from this wrapper around the calico. 
See .? ” and as he spoke he fitted the piece of paper to the 
hole in the wrapper, “see? I found on touching my 


i66 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


tongue to it that it had the taste of sweetened coffee. 
I also examined the hat-shelf in closet eight and found 
that a leaking coffee can had some time dripped its 
contents onto the shelf, and that the coffee had run 
down from it along the wall in the corner of the 
closet in three sticky streaks, where this carpenter 
said he found the bolt of cloth ; precisely correspond- 
ing to those three streaks down the wall, are the three 
dark coffee-stained lines you see here on this piece of 
paper. The carpenter could not have made those dried 
coffee streaks and these stains in three hours’ time, 
and I saw both in less, than thirty minutes after he 
began his work and immediately after you sent for 
me.” 

Then Mr. North inquired, turning to John, “ Did you 
carry that closet key with you while you were away 
on your vacation .? 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Have you ever let any one have the key since it 
came into your possession, until you let the carpenter 
take it this morning } ” 

“No, sir. I am positively sure I have not ; and if 
that bolt of cloth is claimed to have been found in my 
closet, it is to me, a sane person, irrational and 
impossible. It could not possibly have been put in 
there without my knowledge, and yet I have no knowl- 
edge of it whatever, though you seem to prove that it 
was there. What collusion of hell and men is plotting 
or concluding my ruin } ” 

“I had hoped you would not so impudently brave 
out your folly. I had determined that if you would 
frankly confess, tell me all. your method, your object, 
and of the terrible temptation that misled you, I would 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


167 

spare you the humiliation of arrest and punishment. 
But I also determined that if you attempted to shield 
your crime behind a lie, the law should take its course 
with you. You, a trusted man, who have betrayed the 
confidence we placed in you.” Hesitatingly, “Hard- 
hand, you may still take your choice ; what is your 
answer ” 

A score of terrors confronted John Hardhand. He 
sat dumb. A deathly pallor overspread his face. 
Even his lips became colorless. Then rushed madly 
to his brain the thought of John Hardhand, proven, 
convicted, a thief. He thought of Thetty ; poor Thetty ; 
his lips soundlessly moved as if to shape her name. He 
thought of his grand, true, honest, old father ; of his 
broken-hearted mother, who might die for the shame of 
his public dishonor, but would never believe him 
guilty. He thought of his good name ruined — trailed 
through the columns of the newspapers to sate the 
brutish appetites of those who curiously seek after and 
wallow in the carrion of crime, calumny and persecu- 
tion. All this, because some damning circumstantial 
evidence proved him a thief. He, who had never 
done a dishonest act nor ever knowingly a dishonor- 
able one, in his life. His reasoning mind had to admit 
the strength of the evidence which circumstances had 
brought against him. He remembered distinctly, now, 
how he had many times in his life judged instantly, 
and with blasting contempt, those against whom 
evidence even less convincing than this, had been ar- 
rayed, and . that he had heedlessly voiced his convic- 
tions and spread the cursing word of condemnation. 
“ Heaven forgive me,” he whispered half aloud, as he 
thought, they too, like himself, might have been guiltless. 


i68 


JUST PLAIN' FOLKS. 


Mr. .North watched him closely and his quick ear 
caught the whispered words. He spoke kindly, but 
quickly to John and said, “Then you confess the 
crime ” 

John startled by the words, sprang to his feet. Hot 
blood from his pent heart, rushed to his face again. 
The manly sense of the terrible injustice done him by 
such a charge, came over him, and drove him on. 
His eyes flashed with the fury of an outraged animal, 
the fury of a last fight with the hounding fates that 
had surrounded him and had left no escape, 

“No, sir!” Heshoutedit “ No, sir I I confess to 
nothing of the sort. I confess only to the existence of 
ruinous evidences of guilt which I cannot at this moment 
disprove, except by my now worthless word. But it is all 
a base, malicious lie. What cruel fate, or devilish scheme 
of plotting men has placed me in this strait, I do not 
know. I only know I am an innocent man. The ruined 
victim of fate, or of scheming men. I see before me a 
lost name, the contempt of those whom I hold dearest, 
the more wounding pity of those who love me, but 
whose judgment will slowly see in me a fallen man. 
The lost respect of yourself and others whom I have 
faithfully served or would yet faithfully serve. If I felt 
that I could not, soon or some time, disprove this false- 
hood, this cruel hurt, I would wish that I might instantly 
die. But never, for love of truth and manhood’s sake, can 
I admit the lie. I need not ask your mercy on other 
terms, as I refuse it on the terms you offer. You may 
proceed to ruin my name, but you shall not ruin my 
conscience nor embrute my manhood. Now, do your 
worst; proceed, sir, and do your worst.” 

Mr. North hesitated, trembled a little ; himself, in 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


169 

turn, turned pale. He whispered to the detective, 
who promptly arose and walked out. Mr. North 
stepped to the door of the ofhce and reached his hand 
toward the key as if he was about to lock it on the 
inside. 

John sprang to his feet. His eyes gleamed with 
anger, and took on a desperately threatening look like 
that of a beast at bay, as he fairly hissed the words 
through his clenched teeth, “ Man ! don’t dare insult me 
further, or I shall be driven with frenzy to strike you 
dead ! I shall not try to escape, or if I should, you 
cannot prevent me, and have not even the authority of 
law to do so. Don’t dare to attempt it, nor to insult 
me further.” 

Mr. North, pale, trembling, and alarmed, watched the 
great fellow, so terribly magnificent in his anger, 
expecting John would fall on him and crush him. 
The little German carpenter, looked wistfully toward 
the door, and Mr. North moved to one side as if 
to make way for John to pass out. John stepped to 
the door, took out the key, threw it into the waste 
basket, flung the door wide open, walked back to his 
seat, sat down with deliberate coolness, and to Mr. 
North who but for the shame of it would have run out 
of the room, said, 

“You need not feel uneasy, sir. I am awaiting the 
warrant of law, and the officer you have sent for. Be 
seated, please, I shall not run away. You need not 
run away. But you, sir, have neither moral nor legal 
right to make me a prisoner, and the officer, only, has 
legal right to do so. ” 

They waited in ominous discomforting silence many 
minutes. The great office clock ticked off threateningly 


170 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


its monosyllables of passing time, and recalled to the 
mind of John once more the philosophy and the proph- 
ecy of the old kitchen clock in the Sconset home, on 
that night before he ventured to launch his hopes upon 
the social sea of the great city. That night seemed so 
long- ago, now. Time had since been for him so filled 
with experiences impossible to forget. Mr. North 
twisted a bit of paper into a little roll, and felt that his 
beating heart might be heard. The little carpenter 
blew regular nasal whizzings through his bristling, 
sheared mustache. It seemed such a long wait ; — 
finally the detective came in with some papers in his 
hand and was immediately followed by a police officer. 
The detective whispered to Mr. North, who rang a bell 
and said to the boy that answered the summons, Do 
as this man directs,” pointing to the detective. 

The latter then said to the boy, “Go down to the 
shipping department, and tell that short, red-faced man 
employed there, to come up here immediately.” 

Away went the boy, down the stairs, two steps at 
a time shouting as he entered the packing-room, 
“Hey, Shorty ! H-e-y Shorty ! And to a man bent 
over the edge of a packing-case, with his heels off the 
floor, and nearly standing on his head to lay the bottom 
course in a case of dress goods, the boy again cried, 
“Hey, mister, where’s Shorty.?” The man tipped 
back onto his feet, teetered his head up out of the case 
and replied, “ I don’t know ; think he’s gone down to 
the custom-house or to the warehouse. He went out 
of here a few minutes ago, just as the janitor came 
through on his way upstairs. P’raps he’s gone home ; 
he hasn’t been well all day, said he felt most down 
sick. He looked broke up and was pale. Says he’s 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


171 

dead sore, right in there,” putting his hand to his left 
side. “He has probably lifted too much. Lifted 
something he hadn’t ort to ; something too heavy for 
him.” 

To which the boy suggested, “ Mebby it’s jist de 
Grippe. He had de Grippe awful last winter, don’t yer 
know .? When a feller gets de Grippe he can’t never 
get rid of it ; ” away he went to the office whistling, 
“Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-aye,” and said to Detective Karl, 
“ De fellahs says Shorty’s sick o’ de Grippe an has gone 
home.” 

“Come,” said the police officer to John Hardhand, 
and the two walked out together. 


172 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

ONE TO THE JAIL, THE OTHER TO HIS CLUB. 

As John Hardhand, with the officer, stepped out from 
the office door of North & Co. , he turned, bowed respect- 
fully to ]\Ir. North, as was his custom, and put on his 
hat. Mr. North followed and detained them a moment 
as he took John’s great hard hand in his soft one, and 
said, with apparent nervousness but much kindness, 
“ I am exceedingly sorry for this.” His voice sounded 
only just above a whisper, husky and dry. His hand 
felt cold and shaky in John’s palm, and John knew 
that for some unknown reason North still respected 
him and was not confident that he was doing right. 
“If you are held for trial and bail is needed, in the 
morning, let me know, through an officer,” said Mr. 
North. 

To which John answered, “You are deceived, Mr. 
North ; and I hope it is at least without malice that 
you are doing me this terrible harm. I only ask one 
last favor of you, and ’tis due to yourself as well as to 
me : I ask you to continue your search for the man 
who did this evil thing. Do it for the sake of justice, 
and the defense of a helpless, innocent man. I have 
nothing to say of your offer to find me bail, but to 
remind you that you might have spared me the need 
of it if you had been more thorough and less precipitate 
in judgment and punishment. I hope I may not need 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


173 

bail. I shall not send to you to find it for me ; good- 
bye. 

In all the business experiences of George North he 
had never before done what he considered a business 
duty with such reluctance, and with such a sense of 
shame and humiliation to his self-esteem. Somewhy, 
John s face and presence disproved the association of 
crime. That frankly honest-looking face belied all 
this ‘ material evidence/ and, for Mr. North’s own peace 
of mind, he wished John was more a sneak and less a 
man, or wished he might find fuller evidence than this 
which he had, or if it were possible, learn that Farmer 
John was a petty thief. He should feel uncomfortable 
until he could forget the angered, outraged innocence 
of that face, or know that John was a thief. He would 
seek for fuller evidence against him. North went to his 
club that night, and wrestled with politics and tariffs, 
to divert his mind. He astonished some of his friends 
at the American League, by his disposition to disagree 
with them — something quite new for him. 

“ O, bosh,” said he to S. N. De Kaight, the proprietor 
of a great carpet factory, “bosh ! Don't talk here, and 
to me, to-night, about your desire to help ‘the American 
workingman. ’ That ‘ goes ’ on the street or on the 
stump, but we fellows in this club don’t need or want 
that cant, and to-night, begging your pardon, De Kaight, 
it wearies me. Ha ! ha ! We are profited by the high 
prices we get for our commodities, and by the lowest 
prices to us of labor, tools, opportunities, and the 
means of production. You know it, we all know it, and 
we make the most of our opportunity. It makes me 
sick to have those questions of principle burlesqued in- 
side these closed doors ; that ill-smelling, self-convicting 


174 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


falsehood of our tender care for workingmen. Fve just 
locked up one of them for stealing a little miserable roll 
of calico — probably taken to eke out the scant wages I 
pay him, and which would not buy my cigars — and I 
know, very well, that his daily strain of mind and body 
in my service is greater by far than my own. Here, 
DeKaight, have a cigar. Waiter, bring a bottle of Vin 
Cliquot, three or four glasses and some ice. I say, 
Brady, join us ! Let’s talk horse or yacht, or have a 
game of whist. Whist on politics for to-night, anyhow. 
Ha, ha, is it agreed, gentlemen .? ” He filled his glass, 
and lifting it, with a kindly, beaming smile he said, 

‘ ‘ Here ’s to , ” and Brady completed the toast, ‘ ‘ the 

man who seeing that some must serve and some be 
served, cunningly chooses his place and wisely keeps 
it.” Brady was what politicians call “a party kicker,” 
and forever driving his spear into any armor-plate 
that opened a crack. It was De Kaight’s turn now to 
say, “ Hi, hi, there, no more politics,” and Brady for a 
last word added, “Oh, that isn’t politics, that’s business 
religion. ” 

They repaired to the card-room. Cards were brought 
in and De Kaight sat shuffling them, but Bfady, the 
incorrigible tease, stirred up the political pool again 
with a humorous thrust at Mr. North. 

“Ah, ha. North,” said a brother clubman then, 
“you quite astonish me, with so radical a change of 
front. Only yesterday evening you gave us a lively 
lecture on our indifference in the matter of the fund the 
club is raising for the ‘State Committee,’ and assured 
us that if we manufacturers and agents and merchants 
that depend on home trade did not come to the support 
of the party of strong government, which is doing so 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


175 

much for us, the riff-raff of society would bring- upon us 
political and financial ruin. Wasn’t it yourself, or was it 
Winthrop.? Who, then, in our hot political talk, argued, 
that these ‘ confounded ignorant workingmen haven’t 
a cent to lose, no property to be protected, no material 
interest in the legislation of laws.’ I remember you 
continued with the argument, that, because of that 
fact, and because many were not even native-born, the 
‘ great mass of dangerous riff-raff had no natural right 
to a vote,’ and that ‘the safety of our good govern- 
ment demanded their disfranchisement. ’ That having 
for themselves no stake in the government, they were a 
sure menace and promise of ruin to the financial and 
business interests of the country ; that the selling price 
of their ballots was the only directly gainful resource 
politics offered to them. That though the purchase of 
their votes had served a good turn now and then, 
they were getting dictatorial and needlessly expensive 
political factors, and the expense and insolence ought 
both to be stopped, by exacting property qualifications 
and permitting the use of the ballot, only, to those 
whose interest demands the defense of their own 
‘property rights,’ rather than to permit farther the 
abuse of the ballot by those whose greed and need 
both incline them to despoil the property of others.” 

“I beg pardon, Mr. Crooks,” said North, “I am 
still of the opinion that not half the voters are fit to ex- 
ercise the franchise, but I am not so absolutely sure, 
aside from my selfishness, which half it is. You are a 
lawyer, not a manufacturer nor manufacturer’s agent. 
Your legal knowledge makes of you — though out of the 
regular order — a desirable member of the manufacturers’ 
club, but you have little interest in the general good 


176 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


result of legislation ; and all your profit is in the business 
of legislation ; therefore we might naturally disagree, 
and as I am not in considerate, political humor to-night, 
will you kindly defer politics until another time? Let 
me fill your glass ? 

Then the subject of politics was dropped, light gos- 
sip was taken up, the cards were dealt, and the first 
game of whist was started, which was followed by an- 
other, and “the rubber/'* and so on for the remainder of 
the evening, — Whist. 

John Hardhand was not dragged to the Station House. 
He walked. Walked along beside the officer who, 
though he had a pair of handcuffs in his pocket, not 
for a moment thought it necessary to use them. He 
chatted all the way, pleasantly, with John, and did not 
even take hold of his prisoner’s arm. Nobody followed. 
Nobody ran ahead. There was nothing dramatic in 
that portion of the criminal episode. Whoever passed 
Them might have supposed from their manner that the 
officer had met some old-time friend on his beat, and 
was recalling boyhood’s memories. The passers-by 
probably did think so, if they gave any notice at all. 
The officer did most of the talking, and John’s answers 
were so direct, so frank, so pathetic and almost sad, 
that the officer could not have put the nippers on John 
if it were to save himself from a week’s suspension and 
the sergeant’s rebuke. He could not treat him unkindly, 
for John had such an honest, kindly face, so strong and 
yet so pitiful in its expression of hounded misery. 
Thus shines out through the human face a white and 
honorable soul. 

Farmer John Hardhand was placed in a comfortable 
cell, yet not out of the hearing of shocking language 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


77 


and a very medley of sounds that assailed his ears, 
troubled his mind and pained his heart, as he sat on the 
edge of the cot, or walked up and down, through the 
long sleepless night. Sounds that rang in his ears, 
throughout all the years of his after life. Thoughts 
new and strange. Proofs of the little diverging social 
lines, and the subsequent environments that make of a 
human being, prince or pauper or pest. And ever af^c:; 
his heart was softened toward the vicious and erring. 

At the morning sitting of the Police Court were 
scenes, too, to fill a book with the piteous and tragic. 
The officer who had arrested him came into the court, 
smiling pleasantly at John, and took his seat near the 
desk. The detective and the carpenter came also, and 
when his case was called, they detailed the facts they 
knew pertaining to it. John admitted their statements 
to be true, but denied the crime. He was held by the 
Court for trial, and bail was fixed by the Judge at two 
hundred dollars. 

A lady with a veil over her face arose in the back 
of the court-room, came down the aisle to a seat in the 
second row, and touching a well-dressed, ministerial- 
looking man on the shoulder, spoke rapidly to him in a 
half whisper. He immediately arose, and said aloud : 

“ I will furnish bail for this man, John Hardhand, 
and will deposit with the Court two hundred dollars 
cash, if it so please the Judge.’’ Thus the strange 
man spoke. John gazed after the woman as she 
walked back to her seat. Every line of her figure, every 
motion *of her gracefully swaying carriage, was that 
of Thetty Vick. His throat seemed to spasmodically 
close with the lump in it. He trembled perceptibly 
and uttered a low tearless sob. Then he gazed at the 
12 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


178 

man, who, but for the diamond that scintillated in his 
white silk scarf, he would have positively declared was 
a soft-souled clergyman. He was, however, a profes- 
sional gambler. 

John recalled then ' the tones of “her"’ half-loud 
whisper, and ‘Hhe man’s” reply, so loud that he had 
heard every word. “ Certainly, IMamie, if you are sure 
the fellow is white, and won’t skip and come the sneak 
business on me.” 

And “her” whisper. It was the same sweet tone 
he had heard three months ago in front of a Third 
Avenue store show-window. This was not Thetty 
Vick. It was “She.” And some of the fear and hate 
left the heart of Farmer John ; pity and more of re- 
spect, came in its place, for the woman whom the 
world had cast out. 

The man stepped to the desk, laid down the money, 
and that strange pair arose at once and separate- 
ly went away -from the court-room. John walked 
directly to his hotel. He looked for papers of the 
evening before; and in “The World,” he read, amid 
“ police court news, ” this blasting curse on an inno- 
cent man : 

“John Hardhand ; arrested for larceny from his 

employers, North & Co. number Worth street. 

The evidences of guilt seem indisputable. He is prob- 
ably good for a term on the Island. It is a very alarm- 
ing fact that this sort of peculation is becoming quite 
frequent in the dry goods district, and arrests of this sort 
will have a tendency to put a check to it.” 

John’s face lost all its color. His lips changed to 
a gray color. His bedroom was turning dark, though 
the sun shone brightly outside and into the room ; for 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 179 

the window-shade was raised nearly to the window 
top. 

He reached weakly for the key, and locked the door 
lest some one should come in and see him, down. 
The flesh beneath his nails turned blue. His extremi- 
ties prickled like the numbness of a “foot asleep.'’ He 
thought he was dying ; and he really wished he might 
be. He fell back onto the bed and groaned aloud. 

“Ah,” he thought, “ how many eyes have fallen on 
that blackening poison administered to the name of an 
innocent man. The newspaper exchanges will sow 
the nettles. The Scarborough Herald will herald to all 
my friends the story of shame. Oh, dear mother! 
Oh, good Thetty! how I wish I might have died before 
this fate reached me, and so spared you the agony and 
sorrow and shame of it.” 


i8o 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

IN DISGRACE. BUSINESS FAILURE. A PRAYER FOR LIFE. 

The clerk at Earle’s was an exceedingly genial, 
kind-hearted fellow. lie was especially friendly 
toward John, and had, without the asking, done him 
many kindnesses. The one particularly pleasant little 
room which John occupied had been a favor of the clerk. 
It was a front room, commanding a long view down 
the street, and, though it was small, was of convenient 
shape and had its little separate radiator and central 
drop gas-light ; and yet the price was made no higher 
than for less convenient rooms in the rear. John and 
the clerk were most excellent friends. 

The Saturday night after his arrest John noticed 
that the clerk was unusually reticent, and apparently 
embarrassed when he stopped for a moment as usual, 
to chat with him before going to his room. 

“Terribly raw and uncomfortable out, to-day,” said 
John. 

“Yes,” replied the clerk. 

“ Did you speak to the plumber about putting a new 
valve seat in my register, Charley .? ” 

“No.” 

“Wasn’t he in, to-day } ” 

“ Don’t know.” 

“It leaks badly, and the condense-water is wctt'r.g 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


i8i 


the carpet/' said John. Then there was a long silence, 
and the clerk broke it by saying : 

“Your little room connects by a now-closed door 
with the adjoining larger room, and another party 
needs them both after this week, Mr. Hardhand — a 
family party of three persons. If you can find another 
place, so that we can have that room, it would be a 
favor to us." 

John made no reply for a moment, and gazed curi- 
ously at the clerk, who immediately busied himself 
with his pen and ledger. John replied, “ I will try to 
do so." 

The clerk did not look up, but just nodded, and 
scratched away with his pen. John walked away. 

Did Hardhand discover in this suddenly-developed 
need for his room a suggestion that they wished 
him to leave the hotel .? Had some boarder whis- 
pered, as he entered the dining-room, “that is Hard- 
hand, the fellow arrested' for stealing from North & Co.” 
And did another one say, “O yes, I saw an account 
of it in “The World.” He has a sorry, shamefaced 
look, hasn’t he ? ’ Isn’t it funny } he’s such a fine manly- 
looking fellow, too.” Did Hardhand in his supersensi- 
tive state imagme this .? Was he only suspicious of the 
ban under which men seemed to put the man accused 
of theft Was the burden of a clouded name really 
pressing him farther down .? Be that as it may, he went 
in search of lodgings and succeeded in finding them. He 
at once engaged board in a middle-class, private board- 
ing-house, kept by a bright, energetic, hardworking little 
widow, who had learned from experience that if she 
would keep her rooms and table filled with boarders, 
she must not be over-particular in searching out their 


i 82 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


previous history ; she must keep her rates low ; she 
must buy carefully and attend to all the economies. 
She must also pay the one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars rent monthly in advance or leave the place and 
seek some other opportunity herself. Consequently 
she accepted any of respectable appearance who came, 
and retained them so long as they behaved decently 
at the table and about the house.' John Hardhand was 
too honorable to assume another name, or to offer him- 
self under an alias in the business of other men. Too 
sensitive to go to strangers and attempt to explain 
away such cruelly convincing evidence as had been 
brought against him. In his helpless disgrace, he 
was thrown back on his own puny financial resources. 
And he made the old and continually repeated mistake 
of starting, without experience, in a mercantile business 
for himself. In due time, John's case was called in 
the court of special sessions. The witnesses from 
North’s were much more uncertain as to facts and ma- 
terials of evidence than they were in the police court ; 
much to the annoyance of the ambitious young district 
attorney. Mr. North did not press the case ; all the cir- 
cumstantial evidence of the calico, the wrapper and 
the closet were brought out, but the personal testimony 
of the carpenter and the detective did not support it 
with the former force. John, after being indicted, was 
on final trial acquitted. The district attorney was vexed 
and disappointed. While the law had released its grip 
on John, the cloud was not removed, indeed seemed 
to be darker, and the dawn of the day of truth further 
than ever away. The strange man and woman sat in 
the court-room on the day of the acquittal. The bail 
money was returned to the man, and the two walked 


JUS T PLAIN FOLKS. 1 83 

quietly out of court before John had an opportunity to 
thank them. John went out into the world, as a heed- 
less person might say, free again. But was he free .? 

He had spent considerable money in payment of 
lawyers’ fees and other legal expenses. With the 
remnant of his little hoard, — only a few hundred dol- 
lars, — he rented a small store for which he paid a 
large price. He bought a stock of goods which, 
with his “spot cash,” were obtained for a small sum. 
Then with his little capital, and less experience, but 
absolute honesty, he entered the field of commercial 
competition, against great capital, long experience, 
all the questionable business tricks, decoys and cun- 
ning of the craft of “good business men.” He 
struggled in the vicissitudes of trade against all these 
odds, lost his last dollar, and at the end of fourteen 
months after his arrest as a thief, John Hardhand, 
without money, without ownership or legal right to 
stand on any least scrap of this earth, without pos- 
session or legal right to any opportunity to work and 
produce the necessities of life, found himself out of 
business, out of money, and out of employment. He 
was not predisposed to suicide. He was a land animal ; 
a big hearty fellow with a stomach. In .soliloquizing 
and pondering these things in his mind, John found 
himself in a most cheerless state. If he did not exactly 
fancy death by starvation, he might beg his bread, or 
must steal it, or else he must beg and obtain some 
other man’s permission to use his earth, or opportunity ; 
in a word, permission to work for him, on such terms 
as the more-fortunate owner of earth and opportunities, 
might graciously choose to make, if John asked it 
with that proper humility which both “ John’s station ” 


84 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


and ‘‘the respect due to their different stations in life'" 
should alike commend his dependent body and soul. 

For the first time, John Hardhand, now thought of 
the unnatural and incongruous aspect of such condi- 
tions. He now realized that, though, in all the fervor 
of a devout Christian faith, he might pray to the Lord 
God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth ; might turn 
to the promises of God and read for the comfort of his 
soul, “The Earth he hath given unto ‘all' the children 
of men for a possession ; " yet he knew now that he, 
Farmer John, might not use nor possess a square inch 
of earth nor any opportunity or possibility of life, unless 
he humbly prayed some landlord almighty, and gained 
his consent, by first making a bargain with him, as to the 
price of permission to live on this earth that does not 
belong to the Lord God nor to John Flardhand, but, to 
the human lord of the land, maker and keeper of seals 
and title-deeds and all the power that in them is, over 
the earth and the air and the sea that beats upon his 
shores, world without end. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


1^5 


CHAPTER XX. 

SCALES FALLING FROM THE EYES OF THE BLIND. HUMAN 
POVERTY AND NATURe’s BOUNTY. 

During the two years that he had lived in New 
York, John had grown in experience, intelligence, and 
manhood. He was thinner in flesh, but with the alert- 
ness of a naturally active mind, stimulated to rapacity 
for gathering facts and weighing them, which had been 
developed by a hungering soul and a needy body, he 
had learned more of the way of life than he would have 
learned in twenty years on the Sconset farm. Not in 
body, but in soul and mind and manhood, John Hard- 
man had grown immeasurably. He had caught a 
clearer view of the magnificent purpose of life, and 
of the difference between the way and the purpose. 

Over the depths of his thought, which depths were 
now almost profound, hung such an aspect and spirit of 
sadness that its pathos wooed the curious, and won the 
respect of all persons who came under the influence of 
his presence. He felt thoroughly convinced of some- 
thing wrong and unnatural in the present social condi- 
tions, although he did not clearly see the causes nor the 
remedy for them. He was saddened by the knowl- 
edge of conditions which tempted, invited, coaxed, yea 
sometimes forced, men to greed, selfishness and crime ; 
to madly seek unjust advantage of their fellow- men. 
He knew and understood the pressure and strain of 


i86 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


lives made hard, bitter and almost conscienceless by 
the pinch of poverty and by the power of great riches. 
No embruted man, woman or little child of the crowded 
city slums was so vile as not to win his deepest sym- 
pathy and pity. He saw and in his inmost heart he 
knew, now, that had he been born or forced into such 
surroundings, under such influences and desperation of 
impoverishment to soul and body as he had witnessed, 
that he would have been as brutal a man, as shameless a 
woman, as unchildlike a child. At the corner of Bayard 
and Mulberry streets, one day — that place so pitiful 
and ghastly in its squalor of misery — he stood still with 
overwhelming anguish, gazing after a little, frightened, 
shrinking child, pursued by a brutal mother, as it ran 
past him out of an alley and with terrified face dodged 
about among the push-carts of the venders of fish and 
vegetables that lined the curb and filled the street. 
Great tears came into his eyes, and he felt a strong im- 
pulse to catch up the little creature in his arms, and 
hug it for very pity, in all its nakedness and dirt. Four 
or five years old it was ; a child of a scion of sunny, 
God-favored Italy. Italy, home of the arts, thought 
John ; Italy, erstwhile queen of the world ; seat of the 
Christian Church ; scene, once, of the highest civiliza- 
tion. And in the bitterness of his soul he said, “has 
Nature grown niggardly toward her children in material 
gifts .? Are God’s children, now, created of meaner 
stuff, of meaner soul .? Is this the work of God or the 
choice of men.? No ! ” he soliloquized. “Ah, no, it 
can be neither. Then what else can have wrought this 
embruting of men, but the errors of men, the mistakes 
of human government P No rational man, with eyes, 
and hands, will want, or starve for that which the earth 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


187 

offers him, if he is not in some way shut out from op- 
portunity to make use of the earth and in the sweat of 
his brow eat bread.” John earnestly asked himself, 
“ Is there not some way to right this wrong.?” 

i\Iy dear reader, if you can do so some June day, when 
the grass-sparrows sing, when a blue sky smiles down, 
and soft flower-perfumed breezes blow over the millions 
of rich broad acres of unused land on this fair conti- 
nent, walk leisurely through Bayard, Hester, Mulberry 
and similar streets of the great Metropolitan City of 
America, and then say, — if you can, of those human 
creatures you will see there — mortals it will break your 
heart to see, — “It is their own fault ! They need not 
be dishonest ; they need not be wicked and miserable. 
Why don’t they do as I do, as some others do .? ” 

Just open ilie gates, my brother, and let them into 
the fields where the sparrows sing, and the skies smile, 
and the warm earth says,- “ Com.e, labor with me, that 
every good thing, every blessing may spring up at 
your demand ; (that which the fondling hand of labor 
brings forth from my bosom, the bosom of Mother 
Earth, is yours, my child).” Just try that God-provided 
way, and see how long want will pinch and embrute 
the lives and souls of such as these. Passing down 
through Bayard Street from the Bowery to Mulberry 
Street and thence through “the bend ” to Worth Street, 
one June day, John had counted in this walk of three 
blocks, eighty-three children with no clothing, but a 
short shirt and a coat of dirt ; thirteen haggard, half- 
dressed women, huddled in corners and alley-ways, 
nursing naked babies ; saw uncounted women, mothers 
and maids going about clothed only with a ragged 
chemise and dirty skirt ; amid such a jam of shouting. 


i88 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


cursing, wretched people ; venders’ carts laden with 
decaying vegetables and fruits or stale fish, and dark 
red, suspicious-looking meat ; venders of old cast-off 
clothing. So much of this as to fill both sidewalks and 
the street from curb to curb. A team could not drive 
through it at all ; and to even walk through it was 
a slow and very difficult task. The stench of stale 
food stuffs, and the horrible gutter smell was an air to 
turn the stomach of even so stout a man as he. Odors 
so vile as to almost make him wish the nose had been 
left out of the human anatomy. And he pondered the 
relation of these things to society, and said, alas, into 
such conditions are born daily hundreds of little chil- 
dren. Here are the mothers of citizens of the republic. 
Here is the man whose vote and voice in the direc- 
tion of government and civilization has just as indis- 
putable a right, and just as .potent force as mine or any 
other ; in a republic in which he is guaranteed the right 
to vote, and the right to work (for somebody else if he 
obtains their permission) or to sell himself, or beg, or 
steal, or starve. And yet we deceitfully try to blind 
our eyes to this curse and presage of disaster, and to 
shirk responsibility by saying, “It is their fault,” 
when we know better. It is because we dare not 
say it is God’s fault, that we say it is theirs. It is 
because of our own careless, selfish, indifferent neglect 
that we are ashamed to confess what we know to be 
true ; that the fault is our own. 

On Sunday, — that one day which the workingman can 
call his own — Sunday mornings particularly, John 
had many times walked through this pitiful district on 
the East Side, and anon after his two o’clock dinner, 
had sauntered over to Washington Square and thence 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


189 

to “ The Park/^ Central Park, through Fifth Avenue, 
at that hour of the day when prancing steeds and 
clanking silver or gilded pole chains and glittering 
coaches with liveried lackeys filled the street. When 
beauty and culture and dignity and pugs and pride 
were on parade. He had often ridden on the Ninth 
Avenue elevated railroad, swung. round the great Har- 
lem curve, and gazed off thoughtfully over the hun- 
dreds of empty acres there^ where the sun shone and 
the free wind of heaven was pouring over them life- 
giving air, for the need of which little babes of the 
poor were gasping, and dying like flies. Then he had 
thought of that down-town, east side crush of mortals, 
crowded like snarling beasts who are driven onto a 
flood-girt island growing hourly smaller by the rising 
tide. He had been a quiet but most earnest student of 
various phases of human life, of human laws, social 
customs, principles of right, and systems of govern- 
ment. He had associated more or less with kindred 
thoughtful persons, and had been a listener at public 
meetings in Cooper Union Hall, and the Academy of 
Music. He had been a member of an organization for 
intelligent reformation of the popular mind, which had 
for its chief motto the one phrase, “Be just.” Yes, 
John Hardhand had grown deep and tender, broad and 
serious. 


190 


JUST FLA IN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XXL 

AGAIN, THE SEARCH FOR WORK. THE OBSTACLE TO MARRIAGE. 

O, SAM !— 0, JOHN ! 

John’s venture in business for himself with a small 
capital, — as is usual, — had resulted in reducing him 
to the position of a man with no capital. It became 
immediately necessary that he should obtain employ- 
ment and secure an income. 

“The man wdio wants a chance,” again searched 
for work. His aspirations, however, were not so high 
as formerly. As he came down the steps of his 
boarding-house one morning a little after seven, he saw 
Sam Saunders across the way, and, stepping rapidly, 
soon overtook him, walked to Broadway and on down 
town in his company. Sam was employed at North’s 
as a bookkeeper when John was there, and the two 
had been very good friends. Sam had defended his 
name among the men and never for a moment believed 
John had purloined the missing bolt of calico. He had 
often said, he believed it was “ a put-up job on John 
to get him out of some other man’s way,” and had 
more than once confidentially hinted to John his 
belief that Shorty knew something about it. 

Sam was now keeping the books for a cartridge 
manufacturing company at their office in Broadway 
near Reade Street. 


/UST PLAIN FOLKS. 


191 

“How are you getting on, Sam? ” asked John, after 
they had shaken hands, and skipped into step. 

“ Much better than I did at North s, lean tell you 
that,” said Sam. “ I have not bettered myself in the 
matter of salary, but I am out of the strifes and in- 
trigues and petty jealousies of that great house. I am 
quite alone in the office where I am now, and have 
nothing to constantly vex and worry me in my new 
place, so I am getting fat, don't you see ? ” and he 
puffed out a little in pardonable pride over his slightly- 
aldermanic figure. 

“ How is the little Harlem girl, Sam, that you used 
to take so regularly every six weeks to see Erminie, 
and to the Church fairs and all that ? ” 

“ I have given her up.” 

“What! given her up ? And you getting eighteen 
dollars a week ? I thought you were engaged and had 
given her a token ring ? ” 

“ I am not getting eighteen dollars a week, nor 
fourteen. I am getting just twelve. I never did get 
the eighteen dollars but about four months, at North's, 
and then a young Frenchman, friend of their Paris 
buyer, an excellent scholar in both languages, came 
over, anxious to learn their American business, and 
offered to work the first year for nothing. Before he had 
been at the books four months, they put him in my de- 
partment, gradually took the work off my hands and put 
it into his, then cut down my pay, and finally gave me 
notice to leave. Timens told me the other day, that they 
were allowing the Frenchman eight dollars a week now, 
which he spends perhaps, for cigars and the theater. 
He gets an annuity from his father at home in Paris ; 
I suppose his father is rich.” 

“But what about Ada, Sam? ” 


192 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


'‘O, we have struck a balance, passed checks, and 
closed the account. ” 

“Sam!” ejaculated John, with an exclamation of 
astonishment. 

“ Yes,” he replied. 

“What was the matter.? No quarrel, surely.” 

“No 1 No 1 Ada would never quarrel, and no one 
could ever quarrel with her if they tried. If ever at 
any time I felt worried and waspish and spoke care- 
lessly, a cross word to her, the pitifully grieved look that 
came into her face would make me hate myself. I 
would instantly feel like getting onto my knees for for- 
giveness, yet I need only to put out my hand in regret 
toward her to scatter the clouds and bring joy again to 
us both. Those were the bitterest quarrels we ever 
had. Ada, quarrel ; Oh, no.” 

“Very well, Sam. You don’t mind telling me, do 
you, what drove you apart ? ” 

“ It was because I was too darned poor, John. It 
was not so much her fault as mine. I have been a 
hum-drum bookkeeper all these years. I don’t know 
anything else. I have not got what they call ‘ business 
gumption,’ nor experience enough to safely go into 
business for myself, nor capital if I had the experience. 
I have just got to remain a bookkeeper. Bookkeepers 
are plenty and wages are low. My promotion will be 
backward — at least, so far as salary is concerned — though 
it may be forward in responsibility and work. Twelve 
dollars does not safely provide for a home and a wife 
these times, and children perhaps. There is no use in 
my struggling after the dreams of home. Men like 
myself have no business to marry. I gave Ada up 
four months ago.” Then he was silent for a time, and 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


193 

finally continued, There is another idol in the niche 
where I used to sit, now, I believe/’ 

“What do you mean ? ” said John. 

“ I mean that she is courted now by another fellow ; 
proprietor of a liquor store, with a pool-room attach- 
ment. He can furnish her with a most comfortable 
home, and fine clothes and opera-seats and all that.” 

“Don’t you hate him .? ” 

“I did, but I don’t any more. I was bound I would 
not. I go very often to his place in the evening. We 
are most excellent friends. His pool-tables are free to 
me. After all he is a real good fellow, we play pool 
together and smoke and chat. I never drink at all, you 
know ; neither does he, as strange as that seems. I 
can’t blame him, nor I can’t blame Ada. Yes, we are 
the best of friends.” 

“ How does Ada happen to be so fickle ? ” 

“ I didn’t say she was fickle. I don’t say she likes 
this new fellow better than she liked me. I don’t know. 
I never see her now. I could never marry her ; I am 
too poor. He can marry her, and that’s all there is 
about it.” 

John said bitterly, “Oh, Sam !” 

Sam inquired about John’s present relation to Thetty. 
They had been friendly confidants while working 
together at North’s, and so John detailed matters in re- 
gard to Thetty and himself, to which Sam listened at- 
tentively, then added sarcastically, Oh, John!'’ They 
dropped the subject at once. 

“ Do you know, Sam, of any chance for me to get a 
position anywhere, at anything ? ” 

“No, I don’t,” answered the bookkeeper; “ I wish I 
did.” 


13 


194 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


“Here, take my present address.” He penciled it 
upon a piece of envelope and handed it to Sam. 

“ Good-bye, John. Drop into the office and see me 
sometimes when you are passing by.” 

“I will. Good-bye.” 

Sam turned into the office of his employers, and John 
strode on. For two days he continued his anxious 
search. He must pay his board bill, now overdue, and 
had exactly forty-two cents, no more, on this third day 
of his tramp, his birthday also. He had a cent for each 
year of his life, and the lucky odd eleven cents beside 
with which to celebrate the anniversary day of his 
birth. Bitter thoughts and a feeling of almost reckless 
desperation came over him. 

“ I am about ready to do anything,” thought John ; 
“to take any chance job that is offered ; from cutting a 
throat, down to being a lackey ; down to wearing top- 
boots, white close-fitting knee-pants, a pompon on the 
side of my hat and to sit riding backward with folded 
arms on the tail-board of an English village-cart.” 

Just a little after noon, he dropped in at a fashionable 
restaurant up-town to ask for any work they might 
have for him to do ; anything at all. Perhaps they 
might need a fireman in the boiler-room .? The pro- 
prietor, Mr. Boniface, was a genial and kindly man. 
He was also a most excellent reader of character from 
the faces and manners of men. John pleased him, and 
he said, “I think we,” he always said we, “can do 
something for you. How would you like the position 
of usher, in this place .? ” And he gazed off down into 
the fairyland deeps of the restaurant with a pardonable 
look of pride. 

“Well, I don’t know,” John replied hesitatingly. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


195 


“ It would be quite new work for me, though neither 
hard nor difficult since it seems to be only the work 
of attentive assistance to strangers and the common 
natural courtesies that are due to everybody.” 

“ Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Boniface, with good-natured 
satisfaction ; and he laid his hand confidently on John’s 
arm ; “ that’s it, exactly. You will do. And I assure 
you that for a person of your presence and manners, 
the ‘ tips ’ in this place are a regular little gold mine. 
You don’t need any salary from me at all.” 

John was perfectly mystified by this strange nonsense 
and looked innocently foolish ; for he thought Boniface 
was making game of him ; and it seemed unlike the man. 

Hardhand made a frank explanation of his financial 
standing, and Mr. Boniface said to him promptly, “ I 
will give you four dollars a week and board, and you 
may keep all your tips. ” 

“Can’t I do some of the work ? ” asked John. 

“Oh, no,” said the restaurateur, “you have no ex- 
perience at restaurant work, and for cooks and car- 
vers and the like, I have to hire experienced people 
here, you know. I shall occasionally send you out 
with a catering party, to clubs or to private dinners, 
not as Chef, ha, ha, — but to generally oversee, look 
out for crooked work, look after ushers and the gen- 
eral detail of the service. There is good money for 
you in jobs of that sort.’' 

John did not like the thought of this “tip system.” 
He had seen a little of it, and he loathed it naturally, 
for he was by nature a gentleman. “Now, if ydu turn 
out here as well,” continued Mr. Boniface, “ as I think 
you will, I will let you in on those catering jobs, and. 
you will do finely.” John hesitated. 


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“ Well, what do you say ? ” 

I would like to think it over a while.” 

“Oh, if you don’t want it, say so, and I will put 
an advertisment for an usher, in the papers as I had 
intended to do. I must know before eight o’clock 
to-night. ” 

“I will give you an answer before that time, and if I 
determine not to accept your offer I will take your 
advertisement down to the office myself in time for 
insertion.” 

John went hurriedly out, tramped about town for the 
remainder of the afternoon without success, and yet 
could not bring his mind to take such a lackey’s employ- 
ment as Boniface offered. Shortly after six o'clock he 
returned to the restaurant and told the proprietor that 
he feared he could not properl)^ fill the position. The 
man hastily wrote out an advertisement for the news- 
papers, counted the words, handed the copy and the 
exact change to pay for its publication to John, also 
handing him an extra quarter dollar. John shoved the 
quarter directly back saying, “ What’s that for ? ” 

“ Why, that is all right,” said Boniface. 

“ But did you not do me the kindness to await my an- 
swer ? ” said John, ‘ ‘ and can I not be permitted to return 
the courtesy by doing for you this little favor, without 
pay ? It is no trouble at all to me, it takes me right 
past my boarding-place, and I have nothing else to 
do.” 

Mr. Boniface replied at the same time forcing the 
quarter into his hand, “My dear man, you are too 
thin-skinned for business. When money floats your 
way, don’t let it float by.” 

John passed out of the place in great mental com- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


197 


motion. He already owed for one week’s board. In 
passing his boarding-house, he dropped in to leave his 
umbrella which, without need for use, he had carried all 
day. . The grateful odor of dinner came up from the 
dining-room below, and he heard the pleasant chatter of 
table talk, but he hesitated only a mordent, and was 
rapidly starting away, when the little landlady came 
through the hall and with a wicked laughing twinkle 
in her eyes, said, to him, “ What’s your hurry, Mr. Hard - 
hand } Go down and get your supper. You need 
not worry so much over that one week’s board. I 
wish I had no bigger losses than that to count, though 
you should never pay it. Go down and get your 
supper. ” 

“ But, my dear woman, ” he replied, “ I am not going 
to longer freely eat your food ; I’ve had too much of 
it now. I want to pay for what I eat and so eat my 
own food ; and I have not a dollar in the world nor any 
certainty of getting one.” He hurried out of the door 
and down the street toward the “ World Office,” at a 
furious pace, but before he had walked a block, he 
turned quickly on his heel and as rapidly walked back 
to the restaurant which he had left but twenty minutes 
before. 


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CHAPTER XXII. 

THE GENTLEMANLY USHER. A CHAPTER ON ‘ ‘ TIPS. 

Entering “Tony’s Restaurant” breathing deeply, 
flushed from his rapid walk, and smiling, John Hardhand 
came up to the office desk and good-humoredly laughed, 
as he handed to Mr. Boniface the advertisement, the 
money to pay for it, and the extra quarter and said to 
him, “Here is the advertisement copy, and here is the 
money for carrying it down. I have come back with- 
out publishing the advertisement, to answer it my- 
self, if you think I will be able to meet the require- 
ments. 

“Very well; I guess we will try you,” the good- 
natured restaurateur laughingly replied. He smiled 
at the humor of John’s sudden change of mind; he 
laughed, in sympathy with the happy resignation to 
his fate which shone in John’s face, and which gave a 
ring of gladness to every tone of his voice. Boniface 
was a sympathetic man, happy in seeing others happy, 
and John’s change from anxious care to happy content- 
ment was so complete. 

We are overwhelmed with terror of anxiety, as round 
after round in the ladder of our ambitions breaks under 
us, and we go whirling over and over downward. 
Having reached the bottom, — having found that though 
a few arms, legs, or ribs are broken, we are not killed 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


199 


after all, — the worst that was feared and could have 
happened has not happened, we rejoice. Our nerves 
are benumbed with the shock ; acute sensibility of 
the disaster has not yet been aroused to torture us with 
the pain of our injuries. We are glad — happy. Laugh, 
because we are alive. 

Mr. Boniface proceeded to explain to John minutely, 
what his duties would be ; and afterward asked him 
to step into the dining-room for dinner. John Hard- 
hand was a fine-looking, tidily dressed man, and 
very interesting also in conversation. He had seen 
enough of hotel life, to know how to order a dinner 
properly ; no mean accomplishment, if you please. 
Boniface came in, sat down at a table near by, and 
while John was giving his order to the waiter, said 
to him, ‘'Come over to this table, Hardhand, and dine 
with me."' 

An amusing thing that, for a master to say to his 
man ; but this man John was innocently unfamiliar 
with the strained exactions of social etiquette, and so, 
promptly enough, accepting the invitation, came over 
and sat down with Mr. Boniface at his table. The lat- 
ter handed him the menu card, and, with an amusing 
look which John was quick to notice, said, “Order for 
two.” John caught at the chance, and saw a way in it 
to lessen the distance between himself and his employer. 
He began with the “ Blue Points,” and went on down 
through the menu, as the meal progressed, with the 
ease and nonchalance of an old gourmet. Each item 
in proper time and regular order, neither stopping nor 
hesitating at anything but the wine list. And each time 
asking the choice of Mr. Boniface, while he also ordered 
to suit his own taste. Mr. Boniface ordered a small 


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bottle of Sauterne, which they drank between them, for 
John would not obnoxiously refuse, and strain a point 
which was more a point of taste than a point of morals 
with him. He graciously sipped his wine with the 
food, and for the hour, forgetting all differences in their 
station, the two men sat eating leisurely, and chatting 
in a quiet, pleasant way. Both enjoyed the dinner 
exceedingly well. The walls and ceiling were deco- 
rated in relief work and the softest, most delicate tints 
in color ; elegant tapestries were gracefully draped at 
the windows and opened doors. Brilliant electric lights 
from myriads of little globes lighted up the polished oak 
of the furniture and the snowy linen of a score of separate 
tables. The silver and china and cut-glass shone and 
sparkled. Deep-pile axminster carpets made noiseless 
the steps of guests and of waiters as they went 
to and fro. So deft at their work were these full- 
dressed attendants that no noise of silver or rattling dish 
was heard at all. Ah, the waiter indeed was a marvel. 
Saw, without seeming to see. Knew, without seeming 
to watch when a course was done and another course 
should come on. Stood near at hand without eyes or 
e.irs, apparently not in the least attentive ; yet heard 
everything, saw everything, knew your every need 
even before you had expressed it. Slid the chair gently 
under you as you sat down, and drew it cautiously 
away when you arose from the table. He looked 
like a very Prince Imperial. A truly wonderful man. 

John noticed that occasionally a waiter would place 
his hand on a table corner, from which a guest had but 
just lifted his own hand ; that if the proprietor chanced 
to be looking that way, the waiter appeared solemn and 
dumb ; that if Mr. Boniface was looking away, or had 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


201 


his back turned toward him, the waiter smiled at the 
guest ; the guest sometimes smiled, sometimes frowned ; 
but the waiter thereafter invariably showed greater as- 
siduity in serving the guest with the best and with 
wonderful alacrity, after that laying down and picking 
up of hands. 

John kept his room at the boarding-house, but came 
early next morning to his new work. He was im- 
mediately introduced into a full-dress suit, and told that 
his linen must be of immaculate whiteness and his 
shoes well polished. His wavy brown hair, now 
slightly sprinkled with gray, was always kept neatly 
combed, so that was not mentioned. His mustache, 
brown and glossy, curled naturally at the ends. But 
in this uniform he looked, too painfully distinguished 
to suit himself. The uncomfortable thought came to 
him at the moment, and he soliloquized, “ How sneak- 
ingly humiliated I am. How miserably ashamed of 
myself I should feel, in this outfit, if I were to be con- 
fronted by dear old honest, ignorant Bartholomew 
McAuliffe.'' 

Attend to your work, Hardhand,'' said Boniface 
to him, a little sharply ; and John graciously bowed, 
to the gentleman and lady just passing under the tapes- 
try portieres of the archway entrance into the dining- 
rooms. He took the gentleman’s coat, hat and cane, 
and the lady’s wrap, put them together, where he 
could instantly find and return them when the couple 
should leave the breakfast-room. He preceded them 
down into the great dining-halls, turned them over to 
a waiter, and returned to his post. 

Their breakfast was a hurried one, and as they came 
out they asked for a New Haven R. R. time-table. John 


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JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


promptly brought one from the time-table rack in the 
telegraph room. He assisted the man in putting on 
his coat, and then, in the most courteous manner, laid 
the lady’s wrap over her shoulders. He had placed an 
extra time-table on the stand beside him while he was 
busy with his hands, and now that he was disengaged, 
he turned to pick it up and return it to the rack again. 
A silver half dollar was resting on it ; he covered it up 
with his hand and with a horrible sense of shame, put 
it in his pocket — out of sight. The gentleman had laid 
it there for him. Now, the man was gone beyond his 
recall ; and indeed, how should he pay the little 
widow her board bill, how pay his room rent and 
these expensive laundry bills, if he refused to accept 
“ tips } ” 

As John was not exactly a waiter, they did not, 
or rather they could not, require him to join the 
Waiters’ Union, and come under rules and tribute as to 
service ^nd “tips;” but he stood on such unusually 
good terms with the proprietor, that they were suspi- 
cious and jealous of him, and made open complaint of 
this man who was, as they thought, made a sort of 
imported foreign governor-general of their little native 
colony. Boniface heard the complaints and foresaw 
the possibly evil consequences of being too fraternal 
with Hardhand. He was thereafter more reserved, and 
had little to say to John but to give him directions and 
orders occasionally. 

There were many regular patrons at this fashionable 
restaurant, wealthy people, enjoying a rest from their 
own establishments and the care of servants in other 
cities. People who came to New York, rented an 
elegant suite of rooms and took their meals regularly 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


203 


at “ Tony’s/’ as the restaurant of Mr. Anthony Boniface 
was familiarly called. 

John Hardhand’s face and welcome soon became 
familiar and pleasing to them, and their “tips” 
amounted to a considerable sum. John paid the board 
bill to the widow, also the room rent for a month in 
advance, and he had a few dollars beside. But he hated 
the dollars that came in such a way, and with each one 
he felt his manhood going down. Fifty dollars was 
immediately needed up at mother’s on the Sconset farm. 
He had saved forty- four. One day as he stepped to 
open the coach door and help into it a pompous cus- 
tomer, the puffy old fellow stuck his sour face out at 
the window and threw out a little handful of nickels 
and dimes, with one quarter. John’s face was scarlet 
with shame and anger. How he would have rejoiced to 
throw them back into the coach — but it was gone. He — 
shame-faced — picked up the dimes and the quarter, and 
some scampering gamins readily appropriated the re- 
mainder. One of the little fellows rolled up one of his 
dangling sleeves and having picked up three of the 
nickels, made haste to offer them to John. The latter 
gave him the quarter-dollar and told him to keep 
the nickels also. The lad gave another roll up to the 
sleeves of the man-sized old coat he wore, hitched up 
the ragged old pants which were far too long for him 
and were also rolled up, and having relieved his emo- 
tions by uttering the expression, “ Huly Gee,” ran 
down the street and was out of sight in a moment. 

Every day, sometimes many times in the day, John 
was insulted, and then handed a coin, by some patron 
of the place. • And again when he had simply given 
that kindly courtesy to which his nature inclined him, 


204 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


to some guest of pleasing appearance, some person 
whom John desired should respect him, he was cut 
to the heart when such a guest facetiously handed 
him money. As if he knew that John’s smiles and 
kindly fraternities were for sale ; and by the fact and 
manner of giving, said plainly enough, “Here is the 
price.” He was sent to take charge of the catering for 
an evening entertainment by an up-town club. The 
wine-list was especially patronized, for they were a 
wealthy party of sons of the “ better classes. ” Several 
roistering young fellows had to be helped to their car- 
riages, as the hours rolled on toward morning. One 
man in a particularly boisterous and lugubrious state, 
one who had ordered “ extra dry ” until he had become 
wine-soaked and extra-wet ; who had sown money 
around as only a dunce, drunk or sober, would do. He 
had by his own request been lifted by John and actually 
carried to the coach which had called for him at the 
door. Two bright, well-dressed, painted and powdered 
but otherwise physically beautiful women, awaited him 
with the coach, and they tittered with pleasant amuse- 
ment as they helped to steady him back into his seat. 
John closed the coach door, the driver whipped around 
the corner, and they were gone. As John started to run 
up the steps of the club house, he found a great rum- 
pled, wine-wet roll of bank-notes at the foot of the 
stairs. He knew at once that the money had fallen 
out of the young man’s pockets, and made thorough 
inquiry and all possible effort to learn who he was ; but 
no one of the maudlin party had even the most shadowy 
recollection of the man. John never learned, though 
he tried diligently, spent ten dollars of- the money in 
efforts to discover the owner of the lost money, and only 


JUST PLAIN’ FOLKS, 


205 


succeeded in finding three or four fraudulent claimants, 
who, in Answer to John’s advertisements, clumsily tried 
to personate him. There were three hundred and 
thirty-four dollars in the roll, of which John deposited 
three hundred and twenty-four dollars in a savings 
bank, leaving it there in the hope of finding its rightful 
owner ; though he never did. 

One day, as John was coming to his work, he saw 
Mr. Lord, with grip-sack and umbrella just entering 
“Tony’s.” A young man accompanied him whom 
John had seen at Scarborough, but whom he was not 
able to recall by name. Then he noticed another 
stranger passing, with a familiar Scarborough face, and 
noted the fact that it was barely past the time of arrival 
for the early train which made a stop at Sconset. 
Suddenly, a man in farmer-like “ Sun day-clothes ” 
accosted him in glad, hearty tones, 

“Yerra, John Hardhand, me gud mon, an’ how air 
ye .? ” 

It was Jimmy McGurk, from Sconset. He caught 
John’s offered hand and heartily shook it. Still hold- 
ing it shook it again and again as they asked and 
answered a score of questions, and John gathered the 
Sconset news. In mentioning this episode to his 
mother, a few months later, John told her he felt in- 
clined to take off his hat to old Jimmy, feeling him- 
self so much the man’s inferior. And that if it had 
chanced to be Mr. Bartholomew McAuliffe instead of 
Jimmy, he should have been tempted to get down on 
his knees ; or worse , if Old Bat had discovered him 
in his uniform and wearing his custom-made smile, 
he thought he ^should have dropped down and rolled 
in the dirt like an humble dog, before a man so much 


2o6 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


more honorable and manly than himself. John was 
a little extreme in his self-abneg-ation over this episode 
in his life, for it was so unnatural to him, that he called 
it “dirty work.” 

After leaving Jimmy, John entered the restaurant. 
While he was in the dressing-room puttijig on his full 
dress-suit, Mr. Lord ate a little fruit, finished his cup 
of coffee and omelette hastily, and with his. companion 
was just passing out of the restaurant door, much to 
John’s relief, as he came into the dining-room. 

Two weeks after this occurrence, the little District 
Attorney caniie in to “Tony’s ” and greeted Mr. Boniface 
with the familiar air of an old acquaintance. John 
blushed and showed unmistakable confusion as the 
bright little man nodded to him and John preceded the 
man through the dining-room. Before the lawyer had 
finished his meal, Mr. Boniface stepped over to his 
table, and the two sat chatting together. John was 
much annoyed by this, and felt confident that the 
lawyer had told Mr. Boniface of his arrest and trial in 
the criminal court. John took the very first oppor- 
tunity after the lawyer left to go to Boniface and 
explain to him as far as possible, “ the mystery of the 
stolen calico.” Mr. Boniface admitted that the attor- 
ney had mentioned the affair, and had expressed 
astonishment that “ Tony” had not recalled to memory 
the newspaper reports of it. 

When John had completed his detailed explanation, 
Mr. Boniface said to him, “Now, Hardhand, this is a 
most unfortunate thing for both you and myself I 
want to say to you frankly, however, that I don’t believe 
you are guilty, and that I do believe you have been 
wronged ; despite all the lawyer has safd. I don’t often 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


207 


mistake an honest face, and I have put your honesty 
to the test here many times, in ways you know nothing of 
and at times when you could not know a detection was 
possible ; and you were true to your trust. But that is 
not the only thing to be considered. I cannot without 
serious harm to my -business have a man about my 
place who has been once indicted for theft, even 
though he has been acquitted. The news of accusation 
and indictment for crime flies with the wind, like a 
prairie Are, but the news oi acquittal hixs no interest for 
the public ear, and crawls ajong in a leisurely doubtful 
way, never getting far from home. Customers here 
will say to each other, if they do not to me, ‘ Why 
does Boniface keep that sleek-looking, meek-looking 
thief in his place ’ I am sorry, John, I am, indeed, 
that it is so, but you will have to go. I will do any- 
thing in reason that I can to help you, in any place, 
but to keep you here.” 

John held out his hand to Mr. Boniface who grasped 
it earnestly. Mr. Boniface held his hand long, and 
pressed ■ it in hearty sympathy. After a moment of 
thought, John said to him, “You are right. I must 
go, and it is better so. I thank you, my friend, for 
your sympathy. I need it, and still more do I thank 
you for your faith in my honesty. Some day I may 
prove it to you. ” 

“To me it is proved already, my dear fellow,” 
cheerily replied the kind-hearted man. 

That night Mr. Boniface cast John’s account. There 
was three weeks undrawn salary due him, for the 
“tips” had been much more than enough for John’s 
needs. Mr. Boniface gave him him the twelve dollars 
and then, picking out a crisp new twenty-dollar bill 


2o8 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


reached it to him and said pleasantly, “Take that 
from me, with my best wishes for your future good 
luck.” 

“No,” said John, “ I cannot accept charity. I must 
earn my money and take only my own, to enjoy its 
use. The ‘tips ’have already made me a miserable 
man. I want what is right and just. I made my 
bargain with you ; you have paid me.” 

“ But, my dear man,” said “Tony,” “you must let 
people help you in charity when you are so wronged 
that you cannot help yoursglf.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, ” said Hardhand, “ it is so weakening, Mr. Boni- 
face, and so humiliating to accept and get to expect 
charity, that in a little time it takes all the manhood 
and ambition out of a man and leaves him a moral 
wreck. ” 

“Well, then, let us call this twenty dollars, your share 
of the profits of ‘The Century Club’ catering contract ; 
and it yet leaves me five times as much for myself, 
which is very good pay for my part of the work and 
the use of my capital for a couple of weeks ;• there,” 
and he shoved the bill into his hand. John folded it 
and put it into his pocket. They shook hands again 
and he walked out of “Tony’s” and away from his 
chance to obtain a living, and to financially prosper 
by receiving “tips,” in reward for favors and common 
courtesies. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


209 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

AGAIN ‘‘at sea.'’ the ONLY PORT OPEN TO THE MAN 
FROM NO-LAND. 

The three hundred and twenty-four dollars for which 
John had found no owner, still lay in the savings 
bank, subject to his order. But he felt that it had 
better remain there. It was not wealth of his produc- 
tion. He had sent the fifty dollars to his mother, in 
Sconset, and now with this new twenty-dollar bill and 
his wages added to his savings, he had sixty-two dollars 
all told and his room rent paid for a time in advance. 
Yet the cloud was hanging over his name ; and a 
sense of shame, because of this last and meanest em- 
ployment, although he was driven to the necessity of 
accepting it, yet these facts of his life-history oppressed 
and discouraged him. He had little heart of hope to 
further try his fortunes in New York, the seat of his 
troubles and repeated failures. He spent three days 
in idle waiting, to gather his mental and moral forces 
and to think out a plan for his future ; resolving to 
go home to his mother in Scarborough for a day and 
then again return to the great City. 

The little widow, proprietor of the boarding-house, 
tried to cheer and encourage him to further effort in 
New York. He shook his head doubtfully and said to 
her, “No ; I have thought it over carefully, and have 
determined to go to Scarborough, and, if I can, get 

14 


210 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


work as a mechanic in some one of the factories there. 
A name is of little consequence to the man who attends 
a machine, a number will do as well.’' 

There were reasons and tendencies drawing him 
there that John himself hardly knew ; yet they af- 
fected his decision ; then, too, Thetty, and mother and 
home were near, and at Scarborough was a chance 
to do some good for others ; to plant and cultivate 
some lasting truths. I presume such desire is the natu- 
ral consequence of suffering, such as John had passed 
through. Self-sacrificing martyrs are made in that way. 
It is so the world has been redeemed. The highest in- 
spirations of human life ; Gethsemane and the resur- 
rection. 

John went to Scarborough and succeeded in get- 
ting employment in the Opolee mills. Proctor and 
Paul had been working at another Scarborough factory 
now for nearly a year. Proctor was married and Paul 
was likely to be quite soon. John had himself sur- 
rendered the hope of rharriage, and resigned himself to 
the fate of a factory life and the duty of helping his 
mother. He had another duty, too, to seek the cause 
for the social injustice he observed and from which he 
suffered — the duty to interest, so far as he could, 
others to think also, and seek to correct the fundamen- 
tal mistake if it could be found. 

He did not call on Thetty, now. He crucified him- 
self for her sake, as he supposed, and drank vinegar 
mixed with gall. Theoretta Vick was a jewel of her 
sex, but not yet quite an angel. She was a bright, good 
woman, that was all ; with an appetite, and need for 
food. With all pardonable womanly pride for dress, 
with sweet little vanities for gloves and lace and all 


JUST PLA/N FOLKS, 


21 1 


those little dainties of adornment that so add to 
woman’s pleasurable presence and make her desirable. 
With exquisite taste for artistic little refinements, etch- 
ings, flowers, home decorations, pretty dishes, tasteful 
furniture and furnishings. How much prettier for all 
this was she. How much sweeter and more enjoyable 
would this womanly jewel be, set amid such surround- 
ings. 

John’s financial future looked rightly very hopeless 
to him. The suspicion of a miserable crime had not 
been cleared from his name. Time was passing. 
When he came home to his father’s funeral, six months 
ago, that only visit to Sconset during this miserable 
year, he had insisted upon releasing Thetty from all 
obligation of her engagement to him. He had said to 
her, “ I will not in my selfishness hold you to a prom- 
ise made when my life was full of hope and promise. 
I positively refuse to cloud your name with the shadow 
of my name and drag you down to share my miserable 
dependence upon the choice or the caprice of the em- 
ployers of men — of men who are entirely without the 
opportunity to employ themselves.” 

Good Father Hardhand, sickened in heart and body 
by the fruitless struggle, died, and left barely enough 
property to pay off the mortgage and keep the old 
house and four acres of the farm around it as a home 
for mother during her few years more of life. The mill- 
owners took the remainder. Paul, John and Proctor 
helped the dear widowed mother all they could. A 
Swedish farmer worked the old homestead farm, now 
property of the mill company ; raised hay and oats to 
feed the mill mules and horses, and Jersey cows to 
furnish butter for the tables of the mill-owners. 


212 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


A nephew of Mr. Lord, a bright and promising man, 
a sort of manager in the Opolee mills, was in love with 
Thetty Vick. He had that bright, jolly, happy air only 
possible to the prosperous man, and being good at 
heart, for he had had a good mother, his very presence 
was exhilarating, and his conversation bubbling over 
with good cheer. Everybody liked him. Thetty liked 
him — how could she help it.? She just him very 
much ; that was all. 

John’s heart was so heavy that he longed to die. But 
he shunned Thetty and left the field to Captain Vance. 
Thetty herself felt piqued. She thought she knew that 
John’s devotion to her could not after all have been 
equal to her love for him, or he would not have given 
her up so easily. 

Captain Vance with all his bright future before him, 
with all his culture and delightful social equipments, 
and with his genuine love for Thetty, frankly avowed 
his love for her, since he knew her to be free, and 
asked her to become his wife. Thetty said, “Yes” ? 
Ah, no indeed. Not so fickle as that, ah, no ; Thetty 
said, “Wait.” And he waited. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


213 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE NEW SCARBOROUGH. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. THE MEN 
WHO WORK. THE MEN WHO PERMIT MEN TO WORK. 

In the snug little town of Scarborough, great distinc- 
tions in social life have grown up, quite unlike the 
kindly old-fashioned fraternity common when all were 
neighbors and distributed spare-ribs at “hog-killing 
time,” or sent around kegs of cider and’ went all together 
to huskings and quiltings or to church. In the some- 
what different present, a small and select number of 
the citizens, the first citizens, of Scarborough, live on 
“High Street, on the Hill,” just back of the business 
streets and the noise and bustle and dust of work ; on 
the great high hill that is up in the air and sunlight 
and throws its shadow down over the fields of struggle, 
and somewhat darkens the fence corners, where starve 
the stalks of golden grain amid the weeds and worms, 
and bear such fruit as they can. What a pretty and 
promising world this is to the people on the hill. What 
a delightful view they get from the height and the sun- 
lit side of the scene. The shadows are all thrown the 
other way and mostly out of sight. The ’apostles of 
“Well enough! Let well enough alone,” live here; 
naturally and quite properly here. 

When a citizen of Scarborough walks through High 
Street, with a person strange to the place, you will see 
him point to an elegant brick and terra-cotta villa, and 


214 


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say, ‘‘That is Mr. Opolee’s house. He is the biggest 
mill-owner we have got. He’s a millionaire ; a very rich 
man.” Or point to a fine graystone Queen Anne house 
with well-kept lawn and fountains and statues and say, 
“That is Mr. Lord’s house. He is the wealthiest 
citizen we have in town.” Or to a Moorish house of 
brick, stone and terra-cotta, with its barn and garden- 
house of Moslem style, crescents and minarets, and all 
that oriental stuff, and say, “That is a brother-in-law of 
the millionaire Mr. Opolee, who lives there. This is the 
great railroad man. He is said to be worth four or 
five millions.” And so on, and so on. Very bright 
and pretty and interesting, isn’t it .? 

I have lately heard a distasteful rumor — a rumor 
from those envious people who have always some 
harsh word to say of the rich and prosperous — I have 
heard from such uncertain source, such undeserving 
people, that these good persons on the hill are some- 
times a little offensive in their assumption of superior- 
ity to the common lot of mortals, who “ don’t know 
enough to make money nor to take care of it if they 
get it.” These well-to-do, rich fellows are said by silly 
workingmen, who simply know how to work and make 
things, tobe “ somewhat lordly in their conduct and car- 
riage ; — these rich fellows. ” And that they have proyen 
their different clay, by their contemptuous regard for 
and their oppressive treatment of that great mass of 
Scarborough citizens who work directly and indirectly 
for the land-owners, and mill-owners, and railroad 
owners, and so on. 

Now as these workingmen, who only know how 
to make things and don’t know how to take things, are 
themselves made of just common earthy material and 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


21 $ 


water, you might as well say, in the indelicate slang of 
some notorious politicians, “ their name is mud ; ” and 
what are they going to do about it anyhow ? But these 
poor ignorant makers of things and producers of good 
goods will persistently grumble about their hard lot ; 
disturb the peace of society by public complaints, by 
organizations for defense of what they call their right 
to a living proportion of the wealth they produce ; and 
because they have been first struck and injured, claim 
the right, also, themselves, to strike back, at their good 
kind masters, who, in response, continually declare to 
the dependent workingmen that they, the masters, 
have only one purpose in building mills and letting 
land and managing railroads, and making laws, and 
that purpose is to give work ” and incidentally to give 
greater wages and increased comforts and luxuries to 
these silly, discontented workingmen, who could not, 
but for these masters, raise fruit, flower or grain from 
the earth nor make any good thing out of the ma- 
terials of the earth. Still, as some of the politicians in 
their indelicate language have said, ‘‘the kickers keep 
kicking ; ” and, greatest of pities, these common people, 
working people, shut their eyes, much as an enraged 
bull does when he starts towards you, and it is easy 
to dodge their onset ; and oftener they gore their friends 
than their foes. 

It has been an usage in the village of Scarborough for 
more than a century, that the people occupy the town 
hall whenever they desire it, and when any consider- 
able majority, not of riches, but of their numbers, 
approve. That is an established custom so cherished 
that the wise men on the hill do not dare innovate to 
stop it, though to stop it would spare them a deal of 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


216 

trouble. For when people meet there, as they fre- 
quently do and will, to discuss popular affairs, they 
are certain to arouse unjust prejudice. “ They always 
do,” and much harmful gossip about the ‘‘ lord ” who 
permits them to use his land, and the great manufac- 
turer who “permits them to work ” for him, and indeed 
all those amiable fellows who have made this earth and 
all its opportunities and are therefore rightly entitled to 
the homage and service of those whom in merciful 
generosity and kindness they have permitted to work 
and live. One would suppose, when these workmen, 
these fellows, were repeatedly shown their dependence, 
which, by the way, they continuously seem to confess ; 
when they were told that these Scarborough mill-owners 
railroad owners and landlords gave work ” to more than 
nine thousand men, and that if these mills, etc.*, etc., etc., 
should in revenge for this unkind gossip, shutdown and 
“ stop work,” that then, these nine thousand men, will- 
ing and anxious to work, would be likely to starve ; such 
facts should reduce them to contented resignation. 

When it is so clearly detailed to Scarborough working- 
men that, but for the merciful kindness of their em- 
ployers, they would starve ; starve for the very want 
of this work which those amiable employers are 
furnishing for them, one would suppose that that 
would at once close their ungrateful mouths forever 
about landlords, trusts, syndicates, monopolies, tariffs 
and all that ; but it does not, and I am afraid it never 
will. For the working producers of all wealth will 
never be quite satisfied that the primal of all right, 
power and authority is in the landlord. And 
just as the perplexing little child asks, “Well, who 
made Dod .? ” so this larger child asks of the landlord, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


217 


“Who made you ? ’’ Upon which, the landlord, unless 
he is terribly agnostic, is likely to say, “God/' And 
as some one has told that poor foolish workingman 
that God made him, and he has been so silly as to be- 
lieve it, he will most certainly say to this lord of the 
land, “ Goodness gracious, my long-lost brother!" 
And as our rich friend cannot deny the Fatherhood^ of 
God, nor the common motherhood of the earth’s 
maternal bosom, nor even the universal brotherhood of 
man, I do not see how he can shake off these trouble- 
some poor relations nor keep out of trouble with these 
too fraternal brothers unless he tears up the whole 
Divine order, upsets the entire physical universe, and 
rearranges creation to fit his incongruous relation to 
love and justice and truth. 

That’s a great work ; too great. He really does not 
like work so very well after all. I do not want to mis- 
judge his benevolent motives, but perhaps it is because 
he does not prize work nor care particularly to keep it 
for his own use and enjoyment that he so generously 
“ gives work ’’ to the nine thousand Scarborough men, 
and puffs up a little with self-gratulation and vanity as 
he reminds them of his self-sacrificing generosity, while 
he takes good things which work produces ; and he 
enjoys them exceedingly well. 


2i8 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

PESSIMISTS AND OPTIMISTS. LAST SCENES IN THE DRAMA OF 

FATHER HARDHAND’s LIFE. AN UNMORTGAGED BIT OF THE 
•EARTH. 

All the omens and trend of popular thought to-day, 
are full of hopeful promis'e and cheer. The person who 
carefully studies the object-lessons of the world’s daily 
life, and notes the effect they are having upon the pop- 
ular mind, will, in spite of all the misery and mistakes 
that abound, become an optimist. An op-ti-mist, be- 
cause he will see shining through the miserable mists 
of the present, bright rays of dawning day. The cer- 
tainly coming day when truth will be seen of all men 
and justice triumphantly take her seat. 

. The thorough student, who sees and knows what is 
coming must repress his joy a little and not too exu- 
berantly shout, or he will be sneered at by the heedless 
and called a ‘Visionary.” Yesterday when he pointed 
to the misery of men and said it ought to be cured, the 
heedless called him a pessimist, and tried to shirk their 
share of the work by denying the truth and saying 
“things are not so bad as he paints. If we try to 
make things better we will be likely to make them 
worse. Better leave things as they are.” 

To-day, when he pointed to a remedy for the evils 
whose existence the heedless denied only yesterday, 
they to-day will confess them, but declare the evils too 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS, 


219 


great and too deeply rooted to be cured. Again, when 
he proves the bright, beneficent possibilities sure to 
follow a restoration to social and political health, then 
the heedless will certainly call him “visionary’' and 
a foolish “optimist.” Yesterday, he was “tearful 
Tommy the pessimist.” To-day he is “ Happy Hobby 
the optimist,” visionary and enthusiastic, who talks 
absurdly of overcoming eternal selfishness and of bring- 
ing about a millennium. By implication and often by 
utterance they declare it extreme folly to discuss a 
coming day, when all men can be strictly and exactly 
honest without certainly suffering or starving for so 
foolishly straining a moral point. 

Reader, did you ever talk of doing “unto others as 
you would have others do unto you } ” that Golden 
Rule, in the presence of business men.? Did you ever 
refer to the subject of “brotherly love,” in the presence 
of four or five men in a business office.? and fail to see 
one of them smile pityingly on “your silly inno- 
cence,” and another look with comical contempt at 
you, and another with patronizing tone and serio-comic 
face, as if he wanted to pitifully let you down easily 
into the valley of humiliation, say: “O, yes, yes, 
that millennium is not at hand yet, it will probably 
come through the evolutionary process of time, but of 
course we cannot expect to turn the world over in a 
minute. Things have to take their natural course.” 

Did you not know perfectly well that he was con- 
vinced that the world morally, ethically, would never 
turn over at all, and that he was, therefore, heedless of 
all facts and arguments to the contrary .? But if you are 
an observer of facts, you noted that two or three 
of the “business men” present, did heed. And you 


220 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


know that the number of heedful men is already very 
great, and is increasing with phenomenal rapidity ; — so 
fast, that the heedless man will soon be the rare man 
— the member of a harmless minority. And I believe 
you are glad that humanity is becoming heedful ; that 
the human family will therefore become merciful, just, 
and fraternal ; that to “love our neighbor” is not, after 
all, an utopian sentiment 

Let us turn back a few months, — to the time of the 
death of Father Hardhand. There is an object-lesson 
in the death of that good man, and in the circum- 
stances connected with it, which we cannot afford to 
lose. 

When Farmer Hardhand, father of our hero, sold 
two years ago, the sixty-eight acres of marshland to 
the mill-owners, it enabled him to stop some of the 
holes in the sinking ship, and to tide over the financial 
sand-bar ; the nearly inevitable climax of catastrophe 
that so regularly comes to the working New England 
farmer who is not a speculator in other men’s oppor- 
tunities, and who is dependent upon his productions 
for his prosperity ; — but that sale only helped to tide 
over the first sand-bar along a wreck-strewn coast ; 
only postponed the final catastrophe. 

One day. Worthy Hardhand, — time-worn, work- 
worn, worry- worn Father Hardhand — came in from 
the post-office with a letter in his hand, post-marked 
“Scarborough.” That letter enclosed a notice of fore- 
closure of the mortgage which the Mill Company held 
on his farm. He sat down in his old familiar kitchen 
chair, — fumbled searchingly in his side pocket, and 
said somewhat nervously : — 

“Mother, — where’s my specs .? ” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


22 


She found them on the mantel-piece, handed them 
to him, and stood near, sadly watching his face as he 
sat reading the letter. Her poor old scrawny, big- 
knuckled hand rested on his shoulder; a look of 
hopeless, pitying sorrow came into her wrinkled face. 
With a woman’s intuition she understood it all. She 
clumsily smoothed back his disordered soft gray hair. 
Then he reached back and caught her other hand 
in his own, and jerking it up to his mouth he kissed it, 
in a nervous, awkward, school-boy manner, and in a 
tone like the sob of despair, uttered the one word, 
“ Mother.” She sighed and took out her handkerchief. 
The tears that lay balancing on her lower lids fell over 
and crawled slowly down the wrinkles of her dear old 
face. He pulled her toward him, almost harshly. She 
stepped around before him and sitting down on his lap 
leaned her head oygt onto his, and quietly wept. Alone 
in the old kitchen, they sat there, still, for a full half 
hour ; an occasional sniff by the oldfady was the only 
animate sound ; and the old clock in the corner tolled 
off the passing time with steady, unchanging, tick- 
tack, tick-tack, tick-tack. A pin fell out of her thin 
gray hair, that was once so thick and glossy and dark. 
Now, a poor little puny twist of silvery hair fell down 
onto his, and her tears also, fell onto his pitiful face. 
She lifted her handkerchief and wiped them away 
gently, while he sat dumb, like one paralyzed. Then 
he spoke. 

“Mother; the end has come at last. I cannot save 
it now, the place has got to go. O, Marthy ; I am so 
sorry for you, when I think how you have worked and 
worked, and it’s only come to /his. What a world of 
good things you have earned and deserved, and how 


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very little, Marthy, youVe had. Td be glad to die 
Marthy, this minute, if 1 could bring these arms full 
of golden treasures and lay them all down at } our 
feet." 

She hugged his head hard against her flat, bony 
bosom, and said as cheeringly as she could, while she 
kissed his forehead, “Never mind me, Pa, I’W git 
along somehow." 

“Yes, Marthy," he said, “that’s all, — that’s all that 
remains for either on us to do now ; now that we are 
old, — to ‘ git along,’ as the law and the policeman says, 
just ‘git along." 

Then they were still again and the clock ticked louder 
than ever, tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack. 

For nearly a year. Father Hardhand had been 
troubled somewhat, with “spells "as he called them, 
of weakness and short breath. Once, when after 
breakfast he had brought in a very big armful of 
wood he was so severely attacked that he was obliged 
to sit down and rest, and all thought he would faint 
away. He said, he “guessed it was only a bilious 
spell," and took some antibilious medicine. The same 
day Mrs. Hardhand anxiously remarked to Mrs. Vick 
that she felt “rill worried about Pa." He was “not 
at all hearty and well this year." 

She wrote to John the night that the troublous letter 
came from Scarborough, explained the mortgage matter 
and added that “Pa" was “most used up." The next 
morning, Sunday, they remained abed later than usual 
and Proctor and Paul were home to breakfast. The 
boys said very little about the new trouble, and tried 
to keep cheerful. But with little that was cheerful to 
talk about, thpre was not much table chat. The boys 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


223 


went out to “do up the chores for Pa” and had 
been “out to the barn” less than half an hour when 
Mother, in a frightening tone, called from the kitchen- 
door, 

‘ ‘ Paul ! Paul ! ” and they both ran to the house. 

Father Hardhand sat in his chair by the stove with 
his hand pressed hard against his side, and a look of 
excruciating agony in his face ; he could neither speak 
nor breathe. His hand dropped down, his head fell 
forward. They lifted him carefully onto the lounge, 
while Mother meanwhile frantically swung the fan be- 
fore his face, held the camphor bottle to his nose, and 
rubbed camphor on his temples. Then there came a 
shiver and a faint weary gasp, and his chin dropped. 
In the stillness that followed, the clock ticked twice 
loudly, and then Proctor sobbed aloud, “ O, Mother! 
he’s dead 1 ” 

The doctors had an examination, an autopsy, as they 
termed it, and said it was heart disease; “Heart fail- 
ure.” Do you wonder he had heart failure.? Do you 
wonder that “heart failure” is becoming the most 
common disease, the most fatal American disease? 
Doctors nearly all agree that it is brought on by anxiety 
and worry. They all prescribe for “heart failure,” 
entire relief from anxiety, care, and worry, and advise 
perfect rest.” That is it! The doctors are right! 
Worry is wearing us out. 

Father Hardhand, the Sconset farmer, had worked and 
worried and gone to church ; had prayed for strength 
to bear his burdens and trusted in Providence, through 
all the years of his struggle, without even getting 
to see that it was not by God’s providence that his lot 
was so hard ; without ever discovering how it was, that 


224 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


some one systematically and permanently slipped in 
between himself and God’s provident bounties. And so 
he died without even the Mosaic glimpse of the prom- 
ised land. He had lived in the quaint old house, 
toiled on that Sconset farm, prayed in that little old 
church, for forty-three years ; trusted and struggled and 
hoped. Now in his sixty-seventh year his body was 
taken into the little church ; the trefoil window threw 
down its light in benediction on his coffin and on the 
altar. Shone down on the head of the good little-well- 
meaning minister of man-dwarfed and man-distorted 
Gospel. A clergyman who, with innocent guileless- 
ness, spoke of “this dispensation ” as “the Providence 
of God.?” and called the attention of the brethren to 
“the beneficent provision of misery in this life as a 
way to joy. ” The choir sang, “Through tribulations 
deep, the way to glory lies,” and the good old Con- 
necticut farmers responded to that sentiment with an 
earnest, resigned. Amen ! The church was crowded 
with people on that eventful day. Country wagons 
and buggies filled the church sheds. Teams were 
hitched to every tree and post up and down the road. 
The old dry cedar boughs on the church walls smelled 
more deathly than ever. Women sniffled and nervously 
used their handkerchiefs. Men sighed mournfully as 
they gazed down into the box, on the dead familiar 
face of their “neighbor”; for they loved him. All 
passed in a wearying line that they might “ view the 
remains.” It was deathly still. Little children gazed 
furtively and moved along with wide, frightened, 
saddened eyes. Some whispered to others in the 
church entry as they were passing out, “And he was 
such a good man.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


225 

‘^What do you s’pose Mis’ Hardhand will do now? 
I beam he was dretfully embarrassed in debt.” 

“ How terrible bad John does feel, seems ’s if ’twould 
most kill ’im. It broke me all down to see ’im shake 
so, and hear ’im sob.” 

“Yes,” old Mrs. Stern responded, “he don’t seem to 
have the right Christian spirit. I stood right back of 
’im, when he took leave of the corpse an’ he groaned 
and said, ‘ It seems more like man’s murder than God’s 
providence,’ and then he sobbed again, dretful.” 

“How Thetty Vick did take on,” said another, “I 
don’t b’lieve John Hardhand will ever marry her in 
this world ; just think how long he has been a waitin’ 
on her? She is gettin’ ’long, too. John don’t seem to 
get ahead much ; he mus’ be shitless. ” 

They carried Father Hardhand slowly into the 
“burying-ground ” back of the church and laid him 
reverently down in some kindly dirt that his father had 
bought and that was not mortgaged.'/* 

His “ will ” gave all that might be left from his ship- 
wrecked fortune, to his wife. They settled the estate 
promptly, and tried to save enough to “take care of 
her ” for her few remaining years, but they could not. 
It was not sufficient, and the boys must help her. 

A father, a mother, and three strong sons. Not a 
drunkard, an idler, or a shiftless, improvident one ; five 
workers. 

That dead farmer’s hands alone, had wrought out 
wealth enough from that little tract of New England 
earth, to feed clothe and house ten people for seventy 
years ? Yes, for a century. 

He bad left to his dear old companion in toil, — what ? 
An old unpainted house out of repair, some common 

15 


226 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


furniture, four acres of earth, and dependence on 
others for a few years, until she would come to lie 
down beside him, where the thistle-blows are blown 
about in the summer air, and the grass-sparrow hides 
her nest. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


227 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

MASTER AND MAN. THE PLACE WHERE A NUMBER WILL 
DO AS WELL AS A NAME. 

That John Hardhand came at last to seek employ- 
ment in the mills of Scarborough, that he did succeed 
in getting work in the particular factory of which Mr. 
Lord was a large stockholder and business head, is 
a fact so significant as to deserve more than passing 
consideration. 

One afternoon, Milton Norris Opolee, alone in his 
private office at the Opolee mills, was sitting at his 
desk, busy with pen and paper, when the office-boy 
handed him a little slip on which was written in a 
rapid and not very painstaking hand, “ J. Hardhand.” 

He glanced at the paper and said to the boy, “Tell 
Mr. Hartnett, I am engaged, and cannot be disturbed 
just at present ; what is his business ? ” 

The boy went back to John, and this is what he said 
to him, “De boss is busy, and say to tell Mr. Hartnett 
wat’s his business.” 

“ My name is not Hartnett, lad.” 

“Well, de boss read it Hartnett, anyhow, coz he 
says to me Hartnett, I know he did.” 

“Here,” said John, “wait a moment and then 
take this to him.” He carefully sharpened his pencil, 
picked up a writing-pad from a stand near by, and 
wrote in a neat, plain, business hand, “John Hardhand, 


228 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


son of that Worthy Hardhand,late of Sconset,from whom 
you bought Sconset Marsh two years ago. My business 
with you, is to ask for work in the mills. If you can- 
not see me to-day, will you kindly advise me of a 
more convenient time for you to listen to my re- 
quest } ” 

The president of the Opolee mills usually dismissed 
applications of this sort, with impatience when they 
were made directly to himself. Such imposition of 
small affairs, such freedom, was an unwarranted im- 
pertinence. 

“No, I cannot be annoyed,” was his usual an- 
swer. Or if the mill was short of hands, and he hap- 
pened to be in particularly good humor, he would 
brusquely direct the applicant for work to the man- 
ager, who was the executive dispenser of “oppor- 
tunities to work ” in the mills. ]\Ir. Opolee examined 
more carefully this second paper from John, and as 
he read the words, “son of that Worthy Hardhand,” 
he permitted the hand that held the paper to fall 
slowly down onto the desk before him, and turning 
half round in his chair, said to the lad, “Tell the man to 
come in.” 

Mr. Opolee recognized his caller at once, and said 
to him, without rising from his chair, or changing his 
position, “Ah, Hardhand, how are you.? Sit down. 
No, I don't know as I can do anything for you just 
now. I’ll speak to my man, Tennant, about the mat- 
ter, however ; he attends to all that business, you know, 
the hiring and discharging of help, and so forth. Lewis 
(meaning Mr. Lewis Tennant, the manager) is a fine 
fellow for that sort of thing. You might see him about 
it ; here, boy.” The boy came promptly in and stood 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


229 


near, waiting. Mr. Opolee’s eyes chanced to fall on 
the bright little sparkling diamond that flashed in the 
sunlight like a flame, from the third finger of his own 
right hand. The hand still rested on the paper which 
John had written last, and now, again, Opolee saw 
the words “Worthy Hardhand"' in a circle of sunlight 
that shone through a little hole in the window-shade op- 
posite, and fell on the desk where his hand, still holding 
the paper, lay. It was the sunligljt that made the dia- 
mond flash tongues of fire. It was that little spot of sun- 
light also that lighted up the name, which so held and 
commanded Norris Opolee's attention and thought. 
He hesitated a moment, then said to the boy, “ Go out, 
Petie, I don’t need you,” and turning to John, re- 
marked in calm, half-sympathizing tone, “Your father 
died quite suddenly, did he not 1 Some one, I think, 
said, of heart disease.” 

“Yes, sir,” answered John. 

“And he was financially embarrassed, I think Mr. 
Lord’s wife told me ? ” 

“Yes, sir,’* said John, “he was embarrassed.” 

Mr. Opolee was silent for a moment. “ What can 
you do, Hardhand .? Ever work in a factory, at all.? 
What pay do you want ? Could you learn to run a 
bobbin-winder .? ” 

To all of which questions John answered in similar 
sequence, “I have never worked in a factory. I 
would expect the same pay as others get for similar 
work done as well. I could easily and quickly learn 
to run a bobbin-winding machine.” 

“Very well, you may come in the morning. I will tell 
Lew to put you to work for us. You will be here before 
I get down in the morning, so if Lew makes any ob- 


230 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


jections, tell him to see me. O, don’t have any words 
with him about it.” Mr. Opolee wheeled around in his 
swinging chair, faced his desk, crushed the scrap of 
paper which John had written into a ball, threw it 
into the waste basket, and picked up his pen. John 
took the suggestion and left the office. They parted 
company without another word. 

John walked down the street and on up Sconset road 
pondering over the peculiar status of Mr. Lewis Ten- 
nant ; “our man who does all the hiring and discharg-, 
ing” of help; all the dealing out of opportunities to 
work — but who must fit his objections to the wish of 
Mr. M. N. Opolee. There was a little tinge of sarcasm 
mixed with John’s smile of satisfaction over the success- 
ful result of his first effort in Scarborough. He met and 
passed many old friends. He overtook Jimmy McGurk 
and Terrance. They greeted him heartily, for neither of 
them had met him since the day of his father’s funeral. 

“Be the powers,” said Jimmy, “I wouldn’t have 
known ye, Meshter Hardhand, but fer yer likes to the 
fahther ; ye got so changed like, an’ sort o’ sad lukin’. 
Ye aren’t sick, are ye ? ” 

“No,” answered John, “no, I am perfectly well. I 
did not know I had changed much. I guess you had 
forgotten just how I did look.” Yet John mentally 
wondered if he had changed, and remembered that he 
had quite neglected to consider the appearance of his 
own face for more than a year, he had been so 
earnestly studying other faces and so busy with other 
thoughts. 

“ How is Mrs. McGurk, Jimmy } ” 

“Quite well, thank ye, barrin’ a palpytashin she’s 
had off an’ on ever sense she had de Grippe.” 


JUST TLA /AT FOLKS. 


231 


“Did you buy the Laidler farm yet, Jimmy ? 

“No, John, Tm further from it now than iver.” 

“Surely, out of your hard work and your sharp econ- 
omies you have saved up something ? ” 

“ Yis, John, a little, but not enough to buy the farrum. 
An’ I am sceart of the margiges. I won’t buy, less I 
buys free and clear ; and besidst the interisht on the 
money an’ the taxes together is more now than Missus 
Laidler gets from me fer the rint ; ’tis a losin’ houldin 
fer her, unless spiky lashin’ or somthin’ sinds people up 
this way, wid their factory worruk or afther homes for 
the factory min, which they won’t, wid plenty of land, 
an’ good buildin’ land too, down close to the Bur- 
rough. ” 

“ No, Jimmy, neither you nor I will live to see Scar- 
borough spread out so far as to need our Sconset land 
for building-lots on which to erect homes for the poor 
nor mills for the rich. And when they want it to back- 
water their over, they know how to make their 

own price for it and take it.” 

Then the three were silent for a time, for Jimmy under- 
stood what a damning curse to John’s life the back- 
water from Scarborough Mills had been. 

Terrance made the inquiry, “ Mishter Hardhand, did 
ye know, me mother’s cousin is jusht now come over 
from Ireland an is shtoppin’ wid us ? Ye’d ought to see 
the greenhorn. He’d chirk ye up wid his funny shtories. 
He kept us all laughin’ to die wid de shtyle of ’im, an’ de 
far down brogue he have. ” 

“Whisht, Terrance,” said Jimmy reprovingly, “ have 
ye no betther manners than be funnin’ about yer kin- 
folks ? Sure I had a brogue meself whin I kem over, 
uvery bit as bad as him.” And addressing John, he 


1 


232 JUS T PLAIN FOLKS. 

said, “Don’t mind him, Meshter Hardhand. Roger, 
Roger Ryan — that’s me cousin’s name — is a fine intilli- 
gent mon, an’ a idycaated mon as well.” 

They were nearing the Hardhand homestead. 

“ Come over and see uz of an evenin’, wanst in a 
while,” said Jimmy, “we’ll be honored to have ye.” 

“I will, Jimmy. I certainly v/ill. Good-day,” and 
John turned in at the gate. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


233 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

AT WORK IN THE MILLS. PERMISSION TO READ'. EYES FOR 
THE BLIND. 

“ Heigho, mother ! '' For she came to the door, hav- 
ing heard the voices of Jimmy and Terrance as they 
bade John good-bye outside, “ how are you feeling ? " 
inquired John. 

Pretty well, son, but for the pain in my side. I 
guess I have taken cold again. My cough is a little 
bad, and if you aren’t too tired I wish you would go 
down to the station after supper, and get me some 
of that cough syrup.” She took out a little flattened 
portmonnaie, counted out cautiously twenty-five cents 
in change — a dime, two nickels, a two-cent piece and 
three pennies — with trembling hands and gave the 
money to John.' A few pennies only remained in the 
pocket-book. He looked with startled scrutiny into 
her face, and hurried off at once toward the station. 
She called after him, “You needn’t go ’till after supper, 
son.” 

“I can go as well now, mother, and I want to stop 
at the Post Office.” 

On returning, he brought with him a letter from the 
lawyer who had managed his case in the court of special 
sessions at New York. The lawyer had acquired a 
real interest in this client, and as John sat down to sup- 
per, he remarked, “Mother, a clew has been discov- 


234 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


ered, which may possibly lead to the detection of the 
person who stole that piece of calico. I begin to feel 
that at last my name will be cleared of that scandal.” 

“ Bless you, my boy.” And the tears came into her 
eyes. “Bless you. I knew it would come out at last. 

I knew it.” 

“Mother, have you never, — when you considered 
my poverty and the temptations — have you never won- 
dered if it might not be, that I fell ? ” 

“ Never for an instant, John ! You steal ? No one 
who knows you as I do would ever believe such an 
absurd accusation.” 

“ Mother ! ” John exclaimed, and rising from his seat 
he bent over her and kissed her. ^'‘Mother !” — It 
sounded so like that same expression made only a few 
months before in this same room, by the now dead 
husband and father. “Thank you, my best friend,” 
said John, and then they were silent. The face of the 
clock was toward them, its hands pointed to the fast- 
fleeing hours of time and its monotonous tick-tack, 
tick-tack, tick-tack, remindful of the past, relentlessly 
hewed into the future time. She crowded back the 
tears, wiped her eyes, and poured his tea. 

John had brought with him from New York a book 
on politicos.! economy, a gift from one of his Cooper Union 
friends. It dealt thoroughly with the laws of trade, 
with the effect of trade as a means of production, with 
the natural course of trade, and with the question of 
legislative control and direction of the business of ex- 
changing products of labor. Feeling a little relieved 
now from the strain of anxiety, he was inclined to 
believe that he could now keep his mind to the subject- 
matter, and read more understandingly than when he 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


235 


had attempted to read the book in New York. He took 
it from the closet shelf, sat down by the lamp-stand, 
quietly read for an hour, chatted awhile pleasantly with 
his mother, who brig-htened, smiled, and was very 
happy in his companionship, and finally retired to bed. 
His mother coughed severely and frequently during the 
night, and this many times awakened him. He heard 
Fido barking at neighbor Vick’s. Into his mind came 
thoughts of Thetty, and of all that might have been. It 
was only in times of the greatest mental anxiety and 
struggle that there was not in his mind thoughts of 
her. They resumed their old place now. In a mental 
soliloquy, he wondered if she still, sometimes, thought 
of him. If she at last had learned to love Captain 
Vance. 

His mother avoided any mention of Thetty’s name 
in his presence, yet John knew she frequently called 
there during his absence, and that she did little acts of 
kindness for his mother. On one occasion he had met 
her there ; she sat with an empty plate and folded nap- 
kin in her lap, and arose to go as John came in. She 
had shaken hands with him in a neighborly, passing 
way, spoken of the new shoe factory being built on Scon- 
set road, toward Scarborough, kissed Mrs. Hardhand 
with reverent affection, bade John carelessly good-bye, 
and then was gone. As John recalled it now, he cer- 
tainly felt sad, but thought he was only better satisfied 
with the belief, even the assurance, that she had been 
able to master her difficulties and rise above them. He 
was not sorry that she could be content. He wished 
he, too, might be so. He felt that he ought to be. 
Then, with compassionate thought of pity for himself, 
he sought atonement for his own discontent in the fact 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


236 

that he was more nearly alone than Thetty. Thetty 
had at her command the love and fortune of a success- 
ful and honorable man. He turned that sore thought 
over and over in his mind, and lacerated his soul, in 
efforts to chastise it into submission ; but with only 
partial success. He was unable to fall into the oblivion 
of sleep again. Dawn was breaking. He arose and 
built the fire. The Bible lay open upon the table. He 
lifted it up. His mother had left it there ; arising from 
its perusal when before going to bed she went to wind 
the clock, forgetting to close the Book and put it on the 
shelf. John read these lines, “The earth have I given 
unto the children of men, for a possession.” It seemed 
bitter irony, almost a sarcasm to him. He would not 
disturb his mother’s faith with his doubts, but he won- 
dered if she had pondered the words as she read them ; 
had considered her own position, and yet held her faith. 
He went to the door of her room, which was part way 
open, and called softly, “Mother, mother.” She an- 
swered him, arose and soon joined him at the breakfast 
table. 

At seven o’clock that morning, John Hardhand had 
mmde his status clear to the foreman of the Opolee 
Mills, Mr. Lewis Tennant, and was at his work in the 
bobbin-room. John took readily to the employment, 
and the little to be learned was so soon acquired and 
so soon followed by the monotony of mechanical repe- 
titions, that it became tediously irksome to him ; and 
he found himself suffering by mental introspection. 
He was really alarmed with the fear of consequent in- 
sanity. He discovered that he could, to the very 
second, mentally measure the time it took to fill a 
frame of bobbins, without giving it the least direct 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


237 


attention. The ' hands in the Opolee Mill were, he 
knew, forbidden to bring newspapers into the loom- 
rooms or bobbin-room. Yet he saw that a very few 
books were brought. He asked the foreman, Lew 
Tennant, if reading books while attending the machines 
was forbidden. 

‘‘ What d’ye say .? ” responded Tennant. 

“ Is book reading forbidden here ? ” asked John. 

“Well, that depends,” he replied. “It is generally 
understood, the hand that gives all his attention to the 
machine gives best satisfaction to me, and to the boss, 
and is less likely to lose his job ; but there is no par- 
ticular rule forbidding reading, and I generally let it 
pass, if the hand does his full quota of work with the 
machine and makes no mistakes.” 

“I thought I should like to read,” remarked Farmer 
John, “and am certain I can do better work by such 
healthful occupation of my mind. I now find myself in 
such mental confusion at the end of each idle wait, that 
in more than one instance I have permitted the machine 
to run past the point to “ throw off,” and have broken 
all the threads. Once I became so mentally chaotic, 
that I had an almost uncontrollably crazy desire to kick 
the frame off those little insignificant hooks that hold it, 
and see it sail out of the window into the free air. I 
thought it acted as if it wanted to ge^ away and fly 
ojfl.” And John laughed nervously. 

The manager looked curiously at him, and answered, 
“ I don’t care how much you read, if the boss don’t ; but 
those hands that are forever reading and Jhmking are 
also forever kicking up a mess and breeding discontent 
with the relation of the hands to the heads of business. 
Better speak to Mr. Opolee. He appears to choose to 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


238 

be your manager (this he spoke in a tone of cautious 
sarcasm). I presume he will let you smoke at your 
work if you want to, or organize an anarchist conclave, 
experiment with dynamite, preach natural religion, 
promiscuous marriage, and death to all who disagree, if 
you want to. He is absurdly obliging, when he takes 
a fancy, and equally exacting when he don’t, /don’t 
care ; ask him. ” 

John, in quest of permission to read, did call on Mr. 
Opolee, that very night. And by the way, though he 
had now been at his work two weeks, he had not seen 
the face of his employer since the afternoon of his engage- 
ment. This time, John entered the office unannounced, 
for he was a hand, and could be trusted to stand quiet 
and wait if the president was busy, or to go out again 
if the head of the business did not look up. John re- 
moved his hat, held it in his hand and stood waiting. 
Opolee turned, merely glanced at him, when he heard 
the noise of his entering footsteps, gave no nod nor look, 
even of recognition, but continued his writing. At 
last he stopped, whirled around in his swivel chair, 
and without any preliminary salute, said, 

“Well, Hardhand, what do you want?” 

“I desire your permission to read, in the unoccupied 
moments at my machine.” 

“To read ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Read what?” 

“Why? Anything my choice dictates, and which 
will not interfere at all with the success of my work of 
getting all that is possible out of the machine.” 

“Not newspapers, Hardhand? They get kicked 
about the floor, are unsightly and are regular fire-bait.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


239 


“No, Mr. Opolee, books.” 

What kind of books is it you want to read .? Have 
you got any books ? I have a big library, I sup- 
pose three or four thousand books ; I find very little 
time to read ; it is doubtful if I have read the title-page 
of one out of ten of them. Wilkins and Mrs. Opolee 
made out the order list for the library ten years or more 
ago, and she and myself have added a few books to it 
since. If you wish to do so, you can get books from my 
library ; but be sure you return them. What do you 
fancy.? ^ Novels, I suppose, and pioneer history?” 

“Yes,” answered John, “I enjoy some novels. I 
am fond of Victor Hugo, some of Dickens', some of 
William Dean Howell’s, and of Garland’s stories*, and 
in the light of my later experiences I should like to read 
again the history of the fall of the Roman Empire, and 
there are many profound books that interest me : books 
on sociology, governments, ethics and law. 

“ Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, Hardhand, get to reading 
those loose socialistic absurdities, that I hear so much 
about, and which have created so much discontent and 
unhappiness among workingmen. I don’t see why 
they want to make themselves miserable over what 
they can’t help. Why, they are frequently most out- 
rageously ungrateful toward those who give them 
work, and upon whom they must depend for a living. 
Why they choose to spurn the very hand that feeds 
them, I cannot see.''~J 

“ There are, Mr. Opolee, ”-^John cautiously replied — 
“ a great many things to be seen in this world, that the 
most of us never see. Things that some are shut out 
from, and that some trample over without seeing. Hav- 
ing eyes, it is our duty to see, There is no thing good 


240 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


nor bad, that has not in it a message and a lesson. In 
blindness lies the only danger to progress. In seeing 
the only safety. The knowledge of the truth of things 
which are in themselves evil, is profitable, and directs 
the wise to step aside and not fall into evil, or, having 
fallen in, to clamber out again as best and quickly as 
we can.” 

“Quite a sensible philosophy, Hardhand. Pretty 
good ; better write a book ; ha, ha, ha ! ‘ Hardhand’s 

Philosophy of Progress,’ ‘Open Your Eyes,’ or ‘Eyes 
for the Blind.’ There’s money in it, ha, ha ! That's 
what they write for, every time — make no mistake — and 
what they preach for ; I was a-going to say what they 
pray for, for that matter. But my mother never prayed 
that I might become rich, though I remember she prayed 
that I ‘ might be permitted the prosperity that enricheth 
the soul. ’ She had a rich soul — if there is a soul, — bless 
her. She’s gone to Heaven — if there is a heaven. I’d 
like, for her sake, to believe in God — if there is a 
God.” 

“I,” replied John, startled by the half-admitted 
blasphemy, “would not like to believe in God to 
oblige any one, not even a sainted mother ; but I do 
believe in God, because I cannot violate my reason, 
my common-sense, by denying the existence of an 
intelligent, creative will. That is God. I am not afraid 
or ashamed of the good old name. Nor am I obliged 
in using the name to accept all or any of the terrible 
or unreasonable attributes assigned to Him by the dis- 
torted fears or fancies of mortal men.” 

“Hold on a little, Hardhand, and walk up to the 
house with me, on your way home. It’s only a block 
out of your way, and I will show you my library. Yes, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


241 


you can read a little, if it don’t interfere with your 
work. But don’t neglect your work.” 

“I can hardly spare time to go that way to-night, 
thank you,” said John, “I am a little anxious about 
mother, and I am so untidy with the shop dirt and 
working-clothes. Some other time I would be glad 
to do so.” 

“Very well. I will tell Mrs. Opolee to open the 
library for you whenever you come. You can drop 
in coming or going, or evenings, whenever you like. 
Leave Mrs. Opolee a memorandum of the books you 
take, and she will return it to you when you bring them 
back, see } ” 

“Thank you! Good-night, Mr. Opolee,” and John 
went homeward. 

John did not go directly home from Mr. Opolee’s, 
but stopped by the way at the office of Lawyer 
Fixem, to get needed advice and to discuss some 
matters of importance. Proctor — with a family of his 
own and the responsibilities of a home to be pro- 
vided for — could do very little in aid of his poor old 
mother, without intensifying the miseries of his own 
poverty ; and Paul was in position to do but little better 
than Proctor. John — having deliberately planned his 
future for the life of a bachelor — could live very 
properly at the old home. The two brothers made 
this proposition to him: “Stay with and care for 
mother as long as she lives ; we will assign to you 
our interest in the four acres, and all that is left of the 
homestead ; we know it is a small reward to offer 
you for the responsibility, but it is all we have to give 
you for performing the duty that we each owe to her. 
God bless her/' John accepted the charge, and re^ 
16 


242 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


ceived their quit-claim as heirs to the homestead. Soon 
after this event, there came a period of what is called 
‘ ‘ hard times. ” Credits were bad. Financial confidence 
was disturbed. Savings banks were frightened ; for 
“ runs ” were being made on them by needy or fright- 
ened poor depositors. Several banks had failed or 
“stopped payment.” 

John Hardhand drew that chance-found I330.00 from 
the bank and bought back from the “Neawinska 
Mills” corporation, eight acres of the old farm which 
immediately joined the four-acre remnant left from the 
mortgage wreckage in which his father went down. 
The Mill Co. gave him a quit-claim deed. Now, he 
could keep a cow. 

If the owner of that lost money could be found, 
John would immediately transfer the deed to him. It 
was reasonably certain that its owner would never try 
to find either the money nor its worthy finder. All 
reasons forbade that event. The loser would not wish 
any publicity made of his relations to the two “ strange 
women,” nor of his unmanly, — even disgusting, de- 
bauchery. More — he was rich and could better afford 
to lose the money and spare his reputation than re- 
claim the one and lose the other. Men have been 
known to pay for “a good reputation.” By the will- 
ing performance of his duty to his parent, and by this 
peculiar incident — or accident — of the lost money which 
John had found, money which was very wisely dis- 
owned by its mysterious loser, John became possessed 
of some ‘‘ vested rights,” — some “legal rights,” in the 
Earth, 


243 


JUST PLAIN POLKS. 


CHAPTER XXV.III. 

SHADOWED. ‘‘SHE.’’ THE GIRLS IN SCARBOROUGH “ BUS. ” 

The two sisters, Maggie and Thetty Vick, sat at their 
work in the second floor offlce of the “Scarborough 
Municipal Railway Company.” Maggie, at the type- 
writer stand, pad in her hand, was taking down dicta- 
tion of a letter by the secretary. The dictating fin- 
ished, he walked away, and Maggie hurriedly rattled the 
keys of the typewriter, preparing the letter for the mail ; 
for it must go out to-night, and it was already past 
quitting time — six o’clock. 

Thetty sat on a high stool before a desk where she 
had before her an unobstructed view of the street. She 
completed the last entry, put the book into the rack 
on the wall beside her, and waiting for Maggie to 
finish her work, sat looking out of the window at the 
passers-by in the street below. She saw a figure, a 
familiar figure, across the street, striding along rapidly 
toward Sconset road. Her heart gave a half-dozen 
quick rap-a-taps, a little color came into her face, and 
then the rap-a-taps took up their steadier regular rhythm 
again — -John! 

Thetty gazed calmly at his retreating figure and noted 
the manly step as it grew less and less in the distance. 
She was about to step from her stool to get her wrap, 
when the sight of another figure startled her. The color 
flew into her face and as quickly subsided, leaving it 


244 PLAIN FOLKS. 

pale ; even her lips for a moment lost their bright red 
coloring — She I 

This last figure was walking rapidly after the first one, 
apparently as a spy, for the woman moved right and 
left to avoid obstacles^ to her view, and made all pos- 
sible effort to keep John in sight. Thetty sprang to the 
wardrobe, hastily threw on her wrap, and said to Mag- 
gie, “I guess I will walk along; you will not be 
\ through for half an hour yet.” She hurried down, looked 
up the street and started to walk in that direction. 
The woman was gone from sight, and Thetty sauntered 
along leisurely. Ah ! again she had a glimpse of her. 
She v/ as at the door and just entering the office of a 
real estate lawyer, and Thetty stopped at the millinery 
store a little way from it ; she hardly knew why. She 
entered, looked at some hat frames, then came out and 
stood for a time gazing into the show window at the 
display of trimmed hats. This window had a mirror 
in the back which reflected the display in duplicate. 
It reflected the shadow of Thetty also. Ah, “She,” 
“ the woman ” was coming out again from the lawyer’s 
office, and back, directly back toward the spot where 
Thetty stood. Would she pass.? Thetty felti\\^ woman 
looking at her as she passed. Thetty saw her reflected 
in the show window; saw her look, with a gaze bold, 
heart-hungering, pitiful ; a look of mixed admiration, 
shame, contempt, and despair. “She,” the stranger, 
even hesitated. Thetty’s heart stopped. The “wo- 
man ” walked on. Thetty lived again, and drew a deep 
breath. Just once “ She ” turned and looked back, 
then turned the corner towards the station and was 
gone. 

^ ‘ Heigho, sister, ” said Thetty, for at that moment Mag- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


245 

gie joined her in front of the milliner’s store. “You are 
acquainted with Will Belden, in Fixem’s office .? A mag- 
nificently dressed woman just came out of there, and 
she dropped the handkerchief you see lying there by 
their steps. Take it in to Will, for the woman will 
doubtless be back for it soon. ” 

Maggie picked it up and went with it to young 
Belden, saying, “How d’ye do, Will ? Flere is a hand- 
kerchief the lady dropped who just went out of the 
door. She will come back for it no doubt.” Maggie 
looked at the handkerchief It was of white Japanese 
silk, embroidered in white, and bore the initials “M.V.” 
in the corner. 

Will took it, and seeing the initials, said : “I guess 
you have handed me the wrong one ; this is your own 
handkerchief, Maggie.” 

‘ ‘ No, it isn’t, ” replied Maggie. ‘ ‘ Isn’t it funny .? Same 
initials, as I live. Who was she ? ” 

“I don’t know her,” the young man answered. 
“She was from New York, so she said, and called to 
make inquiry about some property next adjoining 
your father’s. I think Mr. Fixem knows her. She in- 
quired for him ; he is out of town. She looked quite a 
little like you, too, Maggie. Some rich relative come 
out from the Indies, perhaps, to surprise you with a 
fortune.” 

“Oh, nonsense,” replied Maggie. Then the truth 
flashed into her mind, and she hurried out, over- 
whelmed with regrets that she had entered the office, 
and fearful that the woman might return for the hand- 
kerchief To Thetty, whom she immediately joined in 
the street again, Maggie exclaimed, ^^'She/ Why 
didn’t you tell me ? " 


246 


JUST TLA /AT FOLKS. 


‘'I supposed,” replied Thetty, somewhat tartly, 
“ that you could go in and leave a lost handkerchief 
without stopping to gossip and ask questions, yet I 
am anxious to know what brought her up here.” 

‘'Just to spy on us, Thetty, I think.” 

“Just to spy on John Hardhand, that I saw, and 
know,” replied Thetty. 

“Isn’t it terrible, Thetty.? ” 

“No, Maggie ; I don’t think she has any desire to 
harm us, nor to revenge herself. She has a wonder- 
fully expressive face, and as I saw it reflected in the 
show window, in its conflicting emotions, it was like 
the face of a martyr in torment, gazing into the door 
of Heaven aiid impetuously doing self-inflicted penance 
wdth the hope of being purged of shame. ” 

“I don’t care, Thet, she frightens me, and I believe 
something terrible will come of it yet. She looks so 
exactly like you, too.” 

“That is the chief cause of my alarm, Madge ; and 
it is perhaps, also, the chief reason for my pity for her. 
If she had wished to harm us, she would have con- 
fronted me in the street, for she saw me, and knew me 
and hesitated, but in pity spared me, though she looked 
as though she wanted to just touch the hem of my 
garment, poor thing. The creature has got a heart, 
that’s certain.” 

“Well, let us hope she has learned all she cared to 
know, and won’t come up to Scarborough again. I 
hope so, any way.” 

“So do I, sister,” said Thetty, “and yet I wish I 
could know more of the poor creature’s history. Her 
face haunts me. What a terrible and blasting double 
she would make, if she chose to take that role and 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


247 


characterize me. Yes, Maggie, you are right; it is a 
terrible thing. I, at least, am almost at her mercy, if 
she chose to turn tormentor. How I wish I could 
know her purpose in coming here, since I must rely 
upon her respect for us and her pity for us, when she 
considers the evir consequences she could visit upon 
us. How can we reach her, and know her feeling 
tovmrd us 1 She is perhaps beyond our power to help. 
We may not respect her, we may not love her, we 
cannot associate with her, but, O sister, we can pity 
her. How is \i possible for us to help her? She must 
not know that we really have any knowledge of her 
existence ; for if she should learn that, and become 
angered at our neglect of her, she would revenge her- 
self on us, effecting our swift and terrible humiliation.'’ 

As the Sconset express wagon came along, the girls 
hailed the driver and stepped in. This wagon commonly 
went from Scarborough to Sconset about a half-hour 
after the stage, carrying trunks, parcels, and tardy 
passengers. They overtook Paul as he was walking 
home. He jumped- in behind, rode as far as the old 
homestead, and stopped a moment there to see his 
mother. Paul still boarded with the Vicks, and helped 
Mr. Vick at odd times, whenever his piece-work at 
the shop in Scarborough failed and did not require 
his presence there. Railroad trains did not pass 
Sconset at hours such as to accommodate the employ- 
ees of the Scarborough factories ; and a stage line, a 
“bus,” as it was called, drove up from the Borough 
in the evening and down from Sconset in the morning, 
carrying factory-hands, at a small weekly fare. It came 
and went with a load of human freight. 

Neither Maggie nor Thetty needlessly disturbed their 


248 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


parents with a report of the visit of “She" to Scar- 
borough that night. Nor had they ever mentioned 
their discovery of her identity in New York. They 
had wisely kept that secret, and now kept this. 

As usual, they rode down in the 'bus next morning. 
For the most part, the Sconset men and boys walked 
to their work in Scarborough. The stage was filled 
with women and young girls. Their conversation 
was cheerful and jolly. Indeed the ride in the ’bus 
was the social ebullition of the day ; the remainder 
of which was hum-drum and speechless always. 
Now they laughed easily, and joked. Criticised one 
another in mock seriousness, until the victim began to 
look doubtful of their intentions, or to accept their 
chaffing in earnest, and look soberly sad. Then all 
would burst into laughter and continue it until the cul- 
prit who had dared to suppose they were in earnest had 
joined in the laugh with them, and paid such pleasant 
penalty for her lost faith in their good-nature. Some 
of the older ones talked seriously. 

“Maggie," remarked Kitty Wells to Miss Vick, “did 
you know that a great New York corporation is going 
to build a shoe factory down here on Sconset road, 
nearly a mile this side of Scarborough dam ? " 

“ Only the fact, but no particulars of it, Kitty." 

“Yes, well, Mr. Marlowe was telling us all about it 
yesterday. They expect to employ over twelve hun- 
dred hands. And he told me also that the ‘ Swing- 
shuttle’ Sewing Machine Company, whose new building 
is less than a mile from Sconset, have got their machinery 
all in, and expect to commence operations the first of 
next month. Ed told me they were going to start up 
with about three hundred hands, nearly all of whom, — 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


249 


about two hundred and fifty, — are old hands that came 
with them from their Williamsburgh factory in York 
State. Some of them are here now, and others coming 
on daily. It is going to create quite a boom for the 
boarding-house keepers. Let us start a boarding- 
house, Madge, down at Scarborough.’' 

“ Better hire a house first, and then see if you have 
anything left after you have paid the first quarter’s rent, 
to buy dishes and furniture with,” said Susie Baudoin. 

“Yes,” retorted Ada Hayes, “Mrs. Darby, where 
brother Tom boards, and where I get my lunch at 
Scarborough, told me yesterday, that the demand for 
board and rooms was increasing wonderfully, and that 
she had hoped she was going to be able to get a better 
price, and make a little profit out of the hard and dis- 
agreeable work now, but that Mr. Lord (he owns the 
row she lives in) had already advanced her rent, and 
told her it would be a third more next month, and 
that in the spring he would either tear down the 
buildings, put a fence round the lot, and put it into the 
market for a business or factory site, or else he would 
‘ have to ’ advance the rent of the property to more 
than double present prices. He said to her that the 
present rent was not equal to the insurance on the 
buildings and simple interest on the ‘value of the 
empty lots.’ And that the lots alone would be worth 
three times their present value in less than two years. 
Mrs. Darby is about crazed with anxiety. She says 
the' poor girls pay her at present for board nearly all 
the wages they get, and that they cannot pay her much 
more, for they cannot get the money. And she says 
it will take every dollar of profit she can make to 
pay the rent ; and leave nothing for herself, with all 


250 


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her hard work. She might as well be a slave to her 
landlord and done with it ; for then she would be 
fed ; and now she is uncertain of even that.” 

“That’s so,” chimed in Mamie Savage, “ every bit 
as well a slave, and we girls that have homes, and are 
not obliged to board out, we that get our board for noth- 
ing or for mere cost of the materials, have an advantage 
over the homeless ones.” 

“Yes, and it’s a shame,” retorted Thetty Vick, “an 
advantage which makes it possible for us to work on 
smaller salaries, which forces the homeless ones to the 
same rate of pay, and which is practically giving to 
our employers and the landlords the labor of our parents 
in providing for us.” 

“The new shoe factory will employ mostly girls,” 
added Maggie Vick, “and I hear that at piece-work 
they can make great wages.” 

“That’s possible to only a very few, mark my 
words,” Thetty put in ; “if all, if any considerable or 
competitive number of them make great wages, the 
great wages will be very promptly cut down, never fear. ” 

Kitty Wells added, “The Fielding girls are going to 
work in the shoe factory, and Betty Wheat, William 
Hayes’ two daughters, Mamie Cornhill, Hattie Ryland 
and every member of Henry Meadow’s family, for he 
has let out his farm on shares to a hay-baling com- 
pany. • Nearly all the young men and boys of Sconset 
have gone or are going into the factories. The farms 
will be deserted pretty soon ; and for that matter. Pa 
says farming don’t pay nowadays, expenses are so 
high, and prices of farm produce so low, nothing pays *■ 
much, but tobacco ; he hasn’t any tobacco land, and 
only an occasional one has.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 251 

The stage stopped before a factory entrance. With 
much giggling, chattering and many girlish ejacula- 
tions, several got up from the crowded seats and hur- 
ried out of the ’bus. 

“ O, Maggie Vick,” screamed one, “you have been 
sitting on my lunch-bag all the way down, do look ! 
She has made Washington pie of the whole thing.” 
They screamed with laughter, and fully half the load 
went scrambling out. The ’bus drove on to another 
factory, where the remaining few alighted. The Vick 
girls walked a block to the railroad office, and the work 
of another day began. So one day after another re- 
peated the same routine as the days, the weeks, the 
years rolled on. 


252 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

shorty’s arrest, poverty, crime, and charity, the 

‘ ‘ NAME ” RESTORED TOO LATE. 

Detective Karl confidentially communicated the facts 
of his latest discovery to John Hardhand’s attorney, 
and asked him to inform his client' of it. The discovery 
was that of which John’s lawyer had written to him, and 
which John mentioned to his mother as “a clew,” 
when he came in with the letter and the cough syrup 
from the Sconset store. Three months after that dis- 
covery, North & Co. lost a piece of real silk velvet ; 
traced it to chief shipping clerk Shorty’s department, 
and after a month of fruitless effort failed to get any 
least clew of it beyond that department. 

Then the detective, under the advice of the lawyer, 
determined to submit the evidence of the shipping tag 
and the scrap of paper to Shorty, and hazard the result. 

He first went to him in a kindly and confidential 
manner, and said, “Shorty, that missing velvet has 
been traced to the department in your charge, and 
no farther clew to it has been found. The grounds for 
reasonable suspicion of you must be apparent to your- 
self. Unless you can assist us to trace it farther, or to 
find it and detect the thief, it is probable you will be 
discharged. Indeed it is already determined that you 
will be. You have been with the house a long time, 
and if you are innocent I don’t want to see you turned 
out, nor do you want to lose your position.” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


253 


Shorty was alarmed, and he showed it plainly. The 
detective was already convinced. Yet it was possible 
that fear of losing his position was the only cause of 
Shorty’s agitation. The latter suggested all sorts of 
theories for the loss of the velvet, but failed to support 
them wUh any evidence ; and he was too fearful of being 
watched and caught if he should attempt the manufac- 
ture of evidence now. 

When the worried man came into the store next 
morning, he was met at the door by the watchman, and 
told to go up for a moment to Mr. North’s private office. 
He hesitated ; but the eyes of the watchman were on 
him. Mr. North was already there ; an unusual thing 
at so early an hour. A policeman came up, immedi- 
ately behind Shorty also, and took a seat outside the 
office door. Then followed twenty minutes of agoniz- 
ing suspense. Mr. North was busied with papers and 
writing at the desk. The officer at the door yawned. 
The florid color of Shorty’s face gradually left it. Even 
his lips turned bluish white, and his hands restlessly 
moved about and trembled perceptibly. The detective 
entered, with that fateful wrapping-paper in his hands, 
and Shorty’s heart thumped so loudly that he feared it 
would be heard, as Karl silently proceeded to unfold the 
paper and hold it up to view before the terrified man. 
Mr. North turned around in his chair and faced Shorty 
also. 

“There! Mr. Short,” calmly began the detective, 
“I bring first before you these evidences of your guilt, 
before proceeding to others, in order to show you in all 
fairness and in regular order, how we know you to be 
guilty. In order that yourself can see that it is the un- 
pleasant duty of this firm to punish you, and to take 


254 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


measures to prevent any repetition of such crimes by 
you or any other employee/’ 

Shorty attempted to speak. 

“ Be silent. Don’t utter a word before I have fin- 
ished. The conclusion which the evidence we have at 
our command establishes, is just and unquestionable. 
Here, look ; some of the proofs ! ” He hesitated, rang 
the bell, whispered to the boy that answered his sum- 
mons ; and the little fellow soon returned with Shorty’s 
nail-box. “Shorty,” continued the detective, “a 
hand-saw in its paper box was expressed to you 
by friends in Stamford, out of the hardware store of 
Goldie & Lewis. Here is the shipping tag, see .? And 
here is the address, to you. You stole that piece of 
calico and put it in your wardrobe closet. Lest a 
glimpse should be caught of it when you had occasion 
to open the door, and to facilitate your getting it out of 
the store, you wrapped it about with this paper, and 
tied it with this string. You had brought this paper to 
the store wrapped around your nail-box, which you had 
taken home by permission, to do some repairs in your 
house. When you tied this string around the calico, 
lest the shipping card on the string should betray you, 
you tore it off, and shoved it down between the floor 
and the wall. I walked through your department one 
day, and as I chanced to look toward you, I noticed that 
simply a glance from me alarmed you. You followed 
me to the door, watching to discover if I was suspicious 
of you. I turned quickly and saw your face directed 
toward me. You convicted yourself, by the look of 
anxious terror in your face. After that unfortunate act, 
you went to your closet and moved the calico about, 
several times, to more completely hide it. In moving 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


25s 


it about, you tore off this fragment of the paper, see ? 
(holding up the bit). It dropped down into a corner of 
the closet and awaited its time to condemn you. You 
grew doubtful of the safety of trying to get the calico 
out of the building, and by some means you gained 
access to the closet used by John Hardhand. You 
transferred the bolt of cloth to his closet and carefully 
hid it there, from his eyes and other eyes, hid it in a 
corner behind an old unused coat, until all should be 
forgotten, or an opportunity occurred to sly it out, or if 
otherwise it were found, the safety of yourself should 
be assured by punishment visited on himself, and that 
you might escape amid the crushing havoc of his ruin. 
Here, see this.” He fitted the torn tag to the fragment 
of it still remaining on the string. “And see here.” 
He fitted the fragment of paper to the missing corner 
of the wrapping paper. “ And here.” He set the nail- 
box down on the wrapper and fitted it exactly to the 
right angle torn hole and the soiled and worn corners 
where it had once folded around the corners of the 
nail-box. 

“ My God ! ” interrupted Shorty, “ what else could I 
do } I had a great family, half starving. What would 
become of me if I lost my job ? I had made a mistake 
that I could not correct ; I had deceived, to cover it up. 

I didn’t mean to steal the calico.” And then he clum- 
sily detailed the whole affair, as it has been more care- 
fully detailed in a previous chapter of this history. “ I 
was a-scaret I would lose my job.” 

“Ah, ha,” said detective Karl, “that is all very well 
for the calico theft, but does not excuse the theft of the 
velvet ; and after having, as you believed, succeeded in 
evading the penalty for the first crime, this second one 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


256 

is unpardonable. The velvet is very valuable, and you 
fully appreciated it when you took it. ” 

“O, Mr. Karl, I can get it back again; I know I 
can. I am dretful sorry that I took it. Won’t you have 
mercy on me if I will get it back again, and not send 
me to prison } O, just for the sake of my poor Mary 
and our children .? Say, Mr. North,” and he turned in 
appeal to his employer, “won’t you forgive me if I will 
get the velvet back again ? ” 

Mr. 'North sat dumb. The other partner, who had 
entered and was listening, started to speak. Mr. North 
motioned him to be silent. The officer at the door 
smiled in pitiless contempt as the poor fellow frantically 
appealed, first to one, then to another, for mercy, and 
hurried on into helpless surrender of full confession. 
Even to the statement of all possible convicting evi- 
dences of his guilt ; in the poor fellow’s reckless 
scramble for mercy, mercy ! Forgetting, madman as he 
was, that the establishment of justice is the purpose of 
law, not the gift of mercy. 

“Where is the velvet.? ” asked Mr. North. 

“Jean Gautier, the old-clothes man in Hester Street, 
has got it.” 

“You had better tell the exact truth of this matter, — 
or it will go hard with you.” 

“I will, Mr. North; do forgive' me. Before God, I 
will tell you the truth ; and I will go right straight to 
Gautier’s with the officer any minute you say so, and 
get it if he hasn’t sold it ; for he said he knew I had 
stolen it, and it was dangerous business to receive it at 
all. If some one will just pay him back the five dollars 
he advanced to me, I will pay them back Saturday 
night out of my wages ; I haven’t got a dollar now ; 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


257 


— won’t you, Mr. Karl ? ” (turning to the detective). 
And then looking from one to another about the room, 
he continued ; ‘‘If you only knew how poor we are, 
and how sick my Mary was, and how the medicine I 
got with that five dollars just brought her back from 
death’s door, you would pity me, I know you would ; 
I know you would.” 

Intellectually not strong, with but little moral sensi- 
bility and less manly courage, his agony was pitiful. 

They did arrest Gautier ; did indict Shorty, and bring 
him to trial. A public appeal was made for charitable 
aid to keep his family from starving while he was in 
prison. Their miserable condition and the great 
temptation that had environed him, brought about a 
popular reaction of public sentiment, which, voicing 
itself through the public newspapers, went to the other 
extreme — demanded his pardon. Subscription papers 
were circulated. A sum in charity was raised, amount- 
ing to over five hundred dollars, which was turned over 
to this family, only to do them as much harm as good, 
through the absurd and hurtful use they made of it. 
It had an even worse result — that of convincing them 
that they had only to whine in effortless idleness, and 
plead their poverty, in order to expect and have right 
to boldly demand — charity, Alas, what trouble we are 
making for ourselves by trying to substitute charity for 
justice ! 

Now that Shorty is punished, now that Shorty’s family 
has been fed and spoiled, we may well go back to the 
date of his first crime, and consider the circumstances 
at 'that time, and the relation of the several parties 
affected by it. 

This particular Short, ambitious assistant to John 

17 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


258 

Hardhand in the service of North & Co., was receiving 
nine dollars a week — a somewhat modest salary on 
which he must feed and clothe and house himself, a 
good wife and three hearty children. The income was 
certainly not munificent. The exchequer was not quite 
equal to the demands made upon it, and the demands 
were imperative ; for life or death depended upon their 
being met. His family always used the poorest and the 
cheapest food ; they were obliged to do so, and accus- 
tomed themselves to poor food — very often had not 
enough even of that. They habitually made use of 
that excellent prescription of the “doctors” for dys- 
peptics — “leave the table feeling that you could eat a 
little more ; that is, leave the table a little hungry. 
This man’s family had marvelously good appetites ; 
no one of them had a trace or symptom of dyspepsia ; 
and yet, the parents frequently, and the children al- 
ways, went away from the table hungry. 'Mr. Short 
did not talk about this unpleasant fact among his 
friends ; nor yet have such persons among yours. He 
had too much pride, then, to confess his inability to 
provide for his family. They did not whiningly come 
then and icl^Xyou, my well-intentioned reader, my quite 
comfortable friend, and s>oyou “don’t believe any intel- 
ligent man in America, willing to work, need go hungry.” 
But let me assure you, “ neighbor,” there are other peo- 
ple than yourself who, from common observation, from 
a touch of personal experience, and from well-authen- 
ticated information, have been convinced that there are 
at least five million working people in America who do 
work hard, are willing to work hard, who neverthe- 
less go hungry every day, and have less and poorer food 
than they need. In this estimate is not included 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


259 


that other million idle men, who are willing and anxious 
to be workingmen, but have no place to work, no 
material to work with — are shut out from both by the 
owners of the earth. 

This family of five persons — father, mother and three 
children — to be fed and cared for vrith nine dollars a 
week ! It filled the man's mind with continual anxiety, 
a frenzied and constant alarm. It developed from his 
half-famishing need an all-controlling, irresistible greed, 
that became almost animal and ravenous. A greed 
like that of a starved dog, likely to, in his hungry haste, 
craunch the very fingers that handed him food. John 
Hardhand seemed to be in his way. Whatever stood 
between this workingman. Short, and more, more pay 
was something to be rushed upon, gnashed, torn, flung 
aside regardlessly. It is thus conditions tempt us, or 
drive us away from our better selves to villainy. 

But now, at last, farmer John Hardhand’s innocence 
was established. He had outlived the harm to his rep- 
utation which the unjust accusation had once wrought. 
He had also, before this disproval came, become a 
factory workman and adopted a vocation and sphere 
of life in which the calumny was practically harmless. 
But the full force of its power in shaping and directing 
his life had wrought immortal results — results not to be 
altered by any legal or popular acquittal from all charge 
or suspicion of crime. 

From John’s New York attorney Mr. North learned of 
his whereabouts, and wrote him a long and congratu- 
latory letter, expressing his great satisfaction in being re- 
lieved from every excuse for suspicion of his guilt. He 
was still more gratified with these pleasing results, be- 
cause they reassured his confidence in his own especial 


26 o 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


little conceit — that he was very expert at reading char- 
acter in the human face. He believed John to be an 
honest man from the moment he first saw his face, 
and had at all times doubted his guilt, even when he 
was under arrest. For this reason he had not pushed 
the case, in spite of circumstances so suspiciously con- 
vincing of guilt. Mr. North was so delighted with his 
successful reading of John Hardhand’s face that he 
(quite like many another specialist) seemed to forget 
the rebutting fact that Shorty’s face had also been be- 
fore him through all these years that had been required 
to prove his correct reading of the face of John Hard- 
hand. 

Mrs. Hardhand had lived to see John’s honor vindi- 
cated and his honesty proved. Thetty could have 
hugged him in her delight, but instead she simply con- 
gratulated him, shook his hand and repeated what his 
mother had said three months before, when he men- 
tioned the discovery of a clew : “No one who really 
knows you, John, ever for a moment believed you guilty 
of the crime.” John himself took the acquittal very 
indifferently. It came too late. The charge had ex- 
hausted its evil service, and the disproval now had 
little interest for him. And yet, John’s innocence was 
established ! That was, at least, a triumph for honesty, 
a modicum of assurance for the hope of honest success 
was gained, weak morals were strengthened, and the 
world was the better for even that. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


261 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE ‘ * WAYBACK ” MORTGAGE. THE FIXEM MEMORANDA. A 
DAUGHTER OF THE VICKS OF NEW YORK. 

An incident very potent in shaping this history, but 
'which occurred long prior to the opening of the story, 
requires resuscitation. It occurred away back in the 
early part of this century, and relates to a title to 
land. 

Worthy Hardhand’s deed of the Sconset farm was 
executed to him by one Uriah Heedless and his wife 
Anne Way. Heedless had obtained his title to the 
place and the property from old Thomas Wayback. 
This same Thomas Wayback had two cousins who had 
gone away, off into the far West, to seek their fortunes ; 
and at the date referred to, about 1841, were living in 
a frontier town in the Territory of Wisconsin. Thomas, 
at this date, planned to visit them, and also to look 
about there a little for a better place for himself in that 
wild country. One Lawyer Fixem, of Scars Corners, 
as Scarborough was then called, being the administrator 
of an estate to which the two western Way backs were 
heirs, was making final settlement and distribution. 
Administrator Fixem negotiated with Thomas, to carry 
to the western cousins their portion of the estate ; 
amounting altogether, to several thousand dollars. As 
security for the safe delivery of this money given in 
trust to Thomas Wayback, Lawyer Fixem asked of 


262 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


Thomas Wayback and Thomas gave to him a mort- 
gage deed of the Sconset farm ; which deed by agree- 
ment was to be satisfied and canceled on the return 
to Fixem, by Wayback, of signed receipts from the 
two western heirs, for the inherited money. Thomas 
Wayback did pay the money to the two heirs and took 
their receipts for it. When he came home. Lawyer 
Fixem wms at the time away in Vermont on business. 
Thomas put the receipts in an old wallet for safe keep- 
ing until Fixem should return ; he hid the wallet away, 
for it contained other and private papers. Hid it so well, 
and lost its location so entirely out of his memory, 
that when he came to look for it, a year later, he could 
find no trace of it. He wrote to his cousins for dupli- 
cate receipts, which they heedlessly postponed send- 
ing. Finally one of them died ; the other went far- 
ther West, and his whereabouts became unknown to 
his eastern friends. The money had been duly paid. 
Thomas Wayback knew that ; Fixem knew it, every- 
body at interest in the matter knew it, and so the 
affair rested ; and that Wayback mortgage deed to 
Fixem, known to have been actually settled, though as 
a legal formality and force, still uncanceled, was 
passed quite out of memory and forgotten, until it 
was unearthed by the Corporation Counsel of the Mill 
Company, when they took in the Hardhand farm 
under mortgage foreclosure from Worthy Hardhand. 
This lawyer immediately and quietly proceeded to 
straighten out the blunder of the Waybacks. After 
much correspondence, and with the aid of western 
agents he found one of the heirs in lower California. 
The other brother and heir had died intestate, and all 
his possessions of property and rights had fallen to this 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 263 

living brother. The latter being in possession of all 
the papers pertaining to the inheritance from the estate 
of Fixem’s administration, and having his memory of 
the transaction sharpened by a sight draft of a hundred 
dollars, payable to him upon his presentation of the 
desired receipts for the inheritance money at the bank 
on which the draft was drawn! He obtained the hun- 
dred dollars. The bank took his receipts for the inher- 
itance, and they were immediately forwarded to old 
Lawyer Fixem, who was also at that time the Mill 
Company’s lawyer. A year or more later, old Mr. 
Fixem having died meantime, an article of cancelation 
called a Satis/actum Duces was obtained from his son 
and heir, and this cancelation Morris N. Opolee depos- 
ited in his safe, and kept there unrecorded. Opolee also 
exacted for himself and his company, a quit-claim deed 
from young Fixem of that portion of the farm in their 
present possession, and permitted the recorded Way- 
back claim to remain on record against that part of the 
farm possessed by the widow and John’s eight acres. 

A second incident, which for its moving spirit goes 
back to a time just prior to the opening of our story, 
also deserves attention. 

This young lawyer, only son and heir of old Lawyer 
Fixem, this young Lawyer Fixem, being in a concert 
hall, in New York, one afternoon and sitting at a wine- 
table with a peculiarly attractive woman, took out his 
wallet to pay for something ordered, when a paper fell 
from it on to the table. Written across the back of 
the paper were the words “Memoranda relating to 
the Hardhand property.” 

The quick eye of the woman noticed it, and she said 
to him : “What a funny farmer-like name. He must 


264 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


be what they call ‘ a hayseed. ' May I read the paper .? ’’ 
and she reached out her hand for it. Thinking it only 
a momentary curiosity on her part, and being anxious 
to be agreeable to her, young Fixem replied : “ Certain- 
ly; but it is only some business memoranda, and it will 
all be Dutch to you.'’ 

She ran it over rapidly, made some odd comments on 
the names Hardhand, Fixem and Wayback, over which 
he smiled, and then she laughingly suggested : “I sup- 
pose your name must be Fixem." He laughed heartily 
again now, and being a little addle-pated with his wine, 
and reckless of consequences, handed her his card. 
With a little low girlish gurgle of laughter she con- 
tinued her comments, reading from the card : “Uriah 
Fixem ; so it is. You doubtless make a great flourish 
when you boldly sign your name : ‘ U. Fixem ; ' let me 
see you write it." 

He wrote across the back of the card, “ Uriah Fixem, 
Scarborough, Conn." 

It was very warm in the hall. Fixem was getting 
dawdlingly drunk. • The woman still held the memo- 
randa paper ill her hand. “Do you want it?” she 
asked. 

“No," he replied; “tear it up; here, let me tear it 
up," and he reached for it. 

“There is a fly in your glass," remarked the 
woman. * 

“Here, waiter," he called, “ shrow zhat out 'nd go 
gi'mme clean glass ; " then he mumbled something 
incoherently about the stupidity of waiters, while she, 
the woman, slyly slipped the memoranda and the card 
into her chatelaine bag. In another minute she arose 
to go from the hall, saying as she did so, “So long ; 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 265 

glad to have met you ; do you drop in here often ? 
See you again ; so long/’ 

With a rather sickening effort, a silly leer and a blank 
look of foolishness in his eyes, he caught at her hand 
which she drew away, while he mumbled,' ‘"’Bllyfor 
you, birdie ; where do ye live ? What’s y’ numb ” 

Without any reply, she was gone; and the plotting 
scheme of Morris N. Opolee was doomed to failure. 

Still another incident, prior to the opening of our 
story, demands consideration, because of its potency in 
shaping this history. 

William Vick, brother of Joel Vick and uncle to 
Thetty, much after the manner of John Hardhand and 
from similar cause, working by somewhat different 
methods, went to New York. This was even before his 
niece Thetty was born. He had married a sweet and 
lovely girl before he went — married against the advice 
of his own and her own friends ; for he had even less re- 
sources than John Hardhand took with him. William’s 
struggle with poverty was a -hard one. Too proud to 
acknowledge his mistake in not waiting until he was 
equipped to support a family, he ignored his relatives and 
friends and fought his battle alone, without their aid or 
sympathy, until yielding at last, he suffered the death 
penalty for having given up to despair in his proud 
poverty. 

He was a devoted husband and father. Love fed 
the souls of this devoted couple. Their love for each 
other amounted almost to wmrship. A pretty baby 
girl was born to them ; just one child, no more. 

When little Mary was six years old, a girl’s most 
terrible misfortune befell her, i. e., she lost her good 
mother. With vitality taxed by the anxieties of 


266 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


poverty, with a body weakened by innutrition, the 
poor woman suffered from an attack of pneumonia only 
three days, and the light of life went out. A friend of 
her husband gave place for her body in his own lot at 
Ridgewood, and thus saved it from Potter’s Field. For 
which gift the bereft husband in gratitude could 
have embraced him. William was dumb with grief 
and could shed no tears. Too -poor to hire a house- 
keeper or even to pay little Mamie’s board, she was 
taken into their private family by some friends of the 
Opolees, and her board was paid by James Opolee, 
father of Morris Opolee, the now president and busi- 
ness manager of the Scarborough Mill Company. Mrs. 
James Opolee charitably looked after little Mamie’s 
clothes, and the child attended the public schools for 
eight years, or until she was fifteen ; and she became 
a very proficient scholar, in consideration of her 
limited opportunities. Graduating at fifteen, she had 
also acquired much technical information, and was 
especially expert and skillful at knitting ladies’ silk 
mittens. By doing such work evenings and at spare 
moments she had been able to buy her own clothing 
for some time before she left school, and continued this 
work for several years afterwards. She made frequent 
presents, as she could, to Mr. and Mrs. Opolee, her 
benefactors, whom she loved and appreciated, and who 
in turn had become deeply attached to her. Mamie 
dressed with exquisite taste, and, perhaps unfortunately, 
was a very beautiful girl. Going one day just before 
the Christmas holidays to a bazaar store to dispose of 
silk mittens which she had made, the manager of the' 
store persuaded her to come and assist them, as sales- 
lady, at the knit-goods counter during the holiday trade. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


267 

He would pay her six dollars a week during- that time, 
and fifty cents extra for evening work at the counter. 
She accepted his offer, liked the independence of self- 
support, and thereafter took care of herself. 

At the end of the first week of her work at the store, 
she devoted, after paying her board, all the balance 
of her week's wages to the purchase of presents for Mr. 
and Mrs. Opolee. 

Mamie’s store acquaintances were not generally of 
an elevating or refining character. “The fellows,” 
dances, picnics, and moonlight boating excursions 
were the chief subjects of their thoughts and conversa- 
tion. A great miscellaneous mass of girls and women 
were crowded together in their dressing-room, and in 
their lunch-room. They talked slang, hummed airs 
from the vaudeville stage, and not infrequently dis- 
cussed unclean topics. 

A sort of humorous glory of prominence surrounded 
the most audacious and witty girls, of whom it was a 
current remark, “O, she is a perfect limb;” which 
slang phrase simply meant that she was not afraid to 
say anything ; yet it was an imperative and universally 
recognized duty to herself, that if she would not forfeit 
her privilege and right of association with them, and 
be promptly cut by all the girls, she must be em- 
phatic of word and expression, that however recklessly 
she might talk, she would not do anything really 
bad. Suspicion of evil adventure, however, did not 
harm “the limb ” in the least ; rather gave her pre-emi- 
nence, so long as actual evidence or admission of evil 
conduct did not put upon her the odium which the 
established custom of ostracizing the fallen has made 
an imperative female duty. 


268 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


These girls, in their coming and going from the 
store, in their service at the counter even, were daily- 
observers of the demi-ni 07 ide. They got to know them 
almost unfailingly at sight. They noted their catchy 
adornments of dress, and even of manner, with which 
such won the attention, even the admiration, of men ; 
and yet no salesgirl would confess this fact to another, 
aiid each quite properly voiced the contempt and hatred 
with which she regarded the scarlet woman. More is 
the pity that so many copied her arts, as they really 
did ; for among this great host of saleswomen, with 
very few exceptions, there was but one goal : to secure 
a steady beau, and to make at last of him a husband, 
and the pillar of a home. They must bait the unwilling 
or the frightened fish ; tempt him in any way, every 
way; with color, form, tone; appeal to his personal 
vanity ; for they quickly learned that he was best 
pleased when they appeared with him in public 
dressed in their most expensive and elegant attire. They 
might slyly, and as if by accident, permit indelicate 
personal contact in taking his arm, in sitting beside 
him in the car, or in gracefully waving through the 
waltz, — tempting his passions. Anything not abso- 
lutely scandalous and criminal, to win a husband and 
gain a home. Alas ! that homes are so hard to get, and 
that they are impossible, to so many good, sweet and 
otherwise pure and noble women. 

Mary had a natural repugnance to this anxious 
husband-seeking, home-seeking phase of female society, 
though her heart hungered for a husband s love, and 
more and more deeply felt the need of a home. She 
had never had a real home, except in those years of 
her babyhood. And even that memory had associated 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 269 

with it the bitterness of poverty ; of a loving, impas- 
sioned mother, who in the intensity of her love had 
kissed her, hugged her to a dying bosom, and had also 
bathed her with tears ; of a father who took her in his 
arms, kissed her fondly, repeatedly, a dozen times, 
expressed his love for her, with a father’s tenderness, 
then set her down and heaved an agonizing sigh. A 
few months later he came here, to the place where she 
lived when she had no mother and there was no home, 
to see her ; it was the last time. He had a terrible 
look in his face then ; she was afraid of him. Shortly 
after that they told her he was dead ; that he had died 
in Bellevue Hospital, — from drink. It was true, he 
surrendered to despair, and plunged into the hell- 
haunted stupor of the rum-habit. Whether ambitious 
students of anatomy gained wisdom from his body, 
whether his acquaintances gained wisdom from his 
mistake, or whether his poor wrecked body went whole 
to Potter’s Field, Mary could never learn ; though she 
sought knowledge with diligence and tears. Still a few 
years later, Morris N. Opolee, a bright, bold and good- 
looking young man, and only child of his parents, 
made love to Mary Vick. To Mary Vick, who had been 
his father’s and ward, whom his mother loved 

almost as if she were her own child ; about whose 
temptation and dangers she had talked so much, felt 
such extreme anxiety, worried and really trembled. 

Morris N. Opolee “made love” to poor Mary. It 
was just made-love, it was not natural, spontaneous, 
outgoing love. But how could she know that, since 
he was so gentle and generous and handsome, since 
he was profuse in his demonstrations of love? And 
that sweet word, “Love,” from his lips, fell on her ear 


270 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


with an effect like that of the gurgling swirl, the 
pleasant splash, of a waterfall heard by a sand-blinded, 
way-lost traveler in life’s desert. Her heart went out 
to him ; how she extolled his every virtue and merit ! 
Ah, he would marry her ; she should have a home ; 
have the blessing and parental regard of her erstwhile 
benefactors, his father and mother ! She thought all 
this. She closed her lips hard, lest she should shout 
aloud, “Ah, at last, joy, unspeakable!” And she 
did open her lips to say, “Yes, Morris, I am yours.” 

He had deceived her ; he wrought her ruin ; he for- 
sook her. 

She did not kill him. She did not herself die of her 
anguish ; death would not mercifully come, though 
'she prayed for it. O, how merciless is death ! She 
lived. Her child, his son, lived. 

His father and mother, who loved and pitied her, 
died, filled with sorrow for her, and shame for him. 
The rest of the world looked black at her, and cursed 
her, and passed by on the other side. She went out 
into a hateful world alone. Her child she placed 
where she could see him, kiss him, and then go away to 
cry. But he should not know that she was his mother. 
She would forever spare him that blight, sweet little 
innocent fellow ; at least she then thought she would 
spare him. Later, a time came, in the lonely bitter- 
ness of her soul, when she could not resist the draw- 
ings of mother-love, and yielding to the overpowering 
temptation, she took him in her arms and said to him, 
“Willie, I am your poor lonely, forsaken, wicked 
mother. You will me, won’t you.? Though you 
cannot respect me nor love me.? ” She heard him just 
that once, say, My mother Then she took him 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


271 


away, where he should not see her again, and 
went back down into the wallow where beastly men 
hold riot. Where her kind purchase means to live, and 
costly clothes and empty follies. Where the fallen one 
gets to wish she had been born a cleaner animal than 
one of the inhuman human race, a species of which 
she sees only the beastly side, in the wallow where 
her “lot” is cast. 


272 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“booming'’ progress, the science of crowding, the 

WAY OF THE WORLD. LORD JOHN. 

In beginning this chapter, we step forward over the 
events of three years of the history of friends and 
acquaintances which we have made in the former 
pages. Three years, with all its changes in the 
affairs of life, the relations of individuals to each 
other and their relations to society. Changes of pecul- 
iar interest ; momentous in their influence and effect ; 
— enough, more than enough material for another and 
larger book than this. Yet we will omit its careful 
detail, that we may the sooner overtake and consider 
the demolishing and the upbuilding consequences of 
thought and acts already recorded in the simple life 
history which has composed the previous chapters. 

Having taken this three, years stride forward in time, 
let us now pause to consider some of the changes 
wrought in that period. 

Scarborough, with its tradesmen, small manufact- 
urers, and a total population of about twenty-five 
hundred persons when our story began, has now be- 
come a considerable city, with a population of more 
than fifteen thousand. Scarborough has become, in 
these few intervening years, at once a city, and also 
one of the great centers of New England manufactur- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


273 


ing enterprise. Like the branchless trunks of a burned 
forest, the chimneys of its numerous factories tower 
up into the smoke-laden air, dark and grimy. Its 
population, requiring space on which to work, and 
homes in which to live, have made the earth’s area in 
that vicinity needful, desirable and valuable. The 
increased value of building lots has made many a 
hitherto poor landowner very rich. Rich, without 
any effort or labor of his own in the production of his 
suddenly acquired wealth. Rich in power to appro- 
priate, to himself the productions of the labor of other 
men, who must occupy his (?) property in God’s earth, 
at, or about Scarborough. By the rapid growth in 
population and by the increased and increasing needs 
of the people of Scarborough, he has become almost 
suddenly possessed of power to legally appropriate to 
himself some, or much of the wealth which they pro- 
duce ; appropriate it in either of two or more ways. 

He may yield them permission to use his space on 
the earth at a fixed price, a definite amount to be paid 
him in the product of the labor done on the space, or 
its equivalent ; so much monthly in advance, or quar- 
terly, or annually, together with power also on his part 
to increase their tribute duty to him at the end of the 
month, quarter or year, if the need of the working pro- 
ducer and the increased volume or value of the produc- 
tions will admit of the larger exaction. That method 
of exacting tribute, of acquiring personal revenue, is 
called collecting rent. The rental value of space, loca- 
tion only, is called “ground-rent,” to distinguish it 
from the rent of buildings and of other property of 
personal production, which, in fact, is not rent at all, 
though it is erroneously called so, but is really interest 
18 


274 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


on the capital which has been employed by labor, and 
embodied in them by the labor of producing them. 

Another way the Scarborough landowner has found 
by which to appropriate wealth, without the trouble of 
producing it, is to sell or transfer ownership in his 
piece of the earth. The selling price is not at all difficult 
to determine — it is capitalized rent. Thus, — if the pres- 
ent productive power of the occupancy and use of any 
particular space is knowm, and the carefully estimated 
ratio of its increasing productive power so well foretold 
as to meet the assent of the needing buyer, — put those 
two factors together, i. e., the value of its annually 
capable production now, and the entire value of what 
it may be hoped or expected to produce in the future, 
for an indefinitely long time ; then from the sum of the 
value of these two factors deduct enough of the prod- 
uct to keep the producing workers upon it alive, so 
that th'ey can continue producing ; deduct something 
also for the element of risk on the part of the buyer and 
a little margin perhaps for over-sanguine speculation 
on the future of it, — and there you are — that is the sell- 
ing price. 

Sometimes Scarborough sellers of land were not suf- 
ficiently careful in their estimates, or made too liberal 
allowances to the buyer for risk, or for the cost of sup- 
porting the wealth producers on it ; then the buyer got 
what he called ‘'a bargain,” and went his way and 
boasted. On the other hand, the seller sometimes 
estimated and deducted from the gross possible produc- 
tions so little for the support of the producers upon it 
that no buyer dared take it. Such an owner of land, 
being more than ordinarily sanguine of increasing need 
for the use of his lots, ‘‘held them for a rise in value,” 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


275 


as the needs of the people for its use should increase. 
Now, the selling price was, as the reader will observe, 
equivalent to a purchase in advance of the product — not 
of labor already done on the land, but — of labor yet to 
be done in the years that should follow. 

The price of a human chattel, a slave, or of an 
animal chattel, is not determined on what it has already 
produced, — which is actual and is already possessed 
by some one, — but is determined on what it has power 
to produce and probably will produce in the future, — 
which is potential. 

Thus also with the price of permission to use Scar- 
borough space and opportunity on the earth. Though 
not because the space without a working man on it 
would produce any more wealth than formerly, or any 
wealth ; but because the working man desired and 
needed space there on which to work and live. He 
could not live without it. And to own the space which 
he must have was the very best and cheapest form of 
ownership of the working man himself. Not the use- 
less, idle ownership of land, — which land in Scar- 
borough would produce no good thing naturally, or as 
we say wild, — but ownership of the man who could 
and would if he lived and used that space, produce 
something desirable, which the owner of the space 
could and would take from him. — Take by authority of 
law, and with that right also confirmed by social sanc- 
tion and well-nigh universal consent. 

Therefore it became very desirable to own lots in 
Scarborough, and the competition became so intense, 
to obtain possession of such excellent opportunities to 
take the productions of producers without the trouble 
of producing, that the price of opportunities to live, — 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


276 

spaces — lots, was run away up to grossly absurd figures ; 
figures in very many cases, so high that no user of 
space would consider them ; but which the owner, in 
his zeal of hopefulness, deemed rationally possible to 
exact some time, and so he held it awaiting the bit- 
terer needs of Scarborough ; speculating on the future 
of Scarborough, and put a fence around it, or put up a 
sign: “No Trespassing Allowed Here,” and waited. 
Would wait until Scarborough people must have it to 
live on, and would be obliged to accept his terms. 

Thus all the land of Scarborough was rented, or sold, 
or held idle and out of use for purposes of speculation. 
Indeed, more than two-thirds of the area within the 
corporate limits of the city was held at prices so high, 
that no one could buy it, and, from his productions 
after paying the rent or the capitalized rent, have enough 
left on which to live and continue producing. So it 
happened, that one-third-used and two-thirds-idle Scar- 
borough, has become what is called “over-crowded.” 
And they have been buying and renting spaces along 
up Sconset-road, and building factories and residences 
there. 

High Street, on the hill, has become too near the 
smoking chimneys and the noise and squalor of work- 
ing-people. 

Mr. Lord has selected a desirable building-site on the 
old Hardhand farm, and has built upon it a sixty thou- 
sand dollar house, an elegant stable, hot-houses and 
other elegant and pleasurable surroundings, — to this, 
his new home. He drives from it to the Borough,— down 
pretty Sconset-road, every morning. Other members 
of the Mill Company have bought from that corpora- 
tion villa sites at Sconset, and have built, or are pre- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


277 

paring to build, pretty and expensive residences on 
them. 

John’s twelve acres including, as it does, the old home- 
stead, which is the choicest building-site on the farm, 
has become the cynosure of all aristocratic villa seekers. 
Standing on a gently sloping knoll, the highest elevation 
on “ the lake shore,” as the borderland of the mill reser- 
voir is now called, it is much-coveted ground. Many 
cautious approaches have been made, many “business 
feelers,” as they are termed, thrown out, in the hope 
that he would name a price for it. John has chosen to 
wait. John has waited quite like the owners of the un- 
used two-thirds of Scarborough. But he yielded a little 
at last. He needed money ; for he needed Thetty, and 
he knew that Thetty should not and could not be wife, 
housekeeper, a home-maker for him, and at the same 
time earn a living in the railroad company’s office at 
Scarborough. So John staked off the least desirable 
one acre of his twelve, and which was yet more desir- 
able than any one acre owned by the mill company. 
Having laid it out in lots comporting with streets 
already surveyed and mapped, he sold one — a middle 
lot — for five hundred and forty dollars. An architect 
proceeded at once to plan and build upon it an elegant 
house. Shortly afterward, John was offered seven hun- 
dred and fifty dollars for a lot near the one first sold. 
He asked eight hundred. The home-seeker would not 
pay it. But two months later, came again and offered 
to accept John’s proposal. 

John answered him, “ No ; that was two months ago ; 
a dozen men have offered me that price since, without 
avail. I will sell you that lot to-day for eight hundred 
and fifty dollars, and no less. ” 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


278 

“Why?” retorted the buyer, “why, Farmer Hard- 
hand, you have not improved that land at all since I 
saw it last ; nor built a road, nor removed a stone, 
nor paid a tax. ” 

“If you do not need it,” replied John, “enough to 
be willing to now pay me the price I ask for it, you will 
be glad to do so soon, or some other man will be ; 
you are not obliged to take it, if you don’t want it.” 

The buyer took it then, and went his way boasting of 
his bargain. 

Thus, one after another, the lots were sold. The cor- 
ner lots last, and at famous prices. That one acre netted 
John seven thousand two hundred and forty dollars. 
He expended nine hundred dollars of it in overhauling, 
modernizing and beautifying the old farm-house. 

Then John traded a half acre of the homestead land, 
for four acres of land a half-mile nearer Scarborough, 
but with its frontage four hundred feet back from 
Sconset road, and he received also a cash bonus of 
two hundred and fifty dollars. The four acre lot was 
an excellent bit of grass land, from which to cut hay, 
and would admit of the use of the home meadow now, 
for pasturage for the cow. Larger range, more plentiful 
feed, — for the cow. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


279 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

CLIMAX OF OPOLEe's PLOT. FATHER AND SON. THE HOUR 

OF “her'' triumph.” “look on an honest man!” 

Paul was married : to whom do you think } To 
Kitty McAuliffe ; more than a year ago. Two months 
after Paul’s marriage, Mother Hardhand died and 
went to the first actual rest she had ever had, since with 
Worthy, they began their struggle on the Sconset farm. 
May Heaven shower treasures of blessing on them I 
Alas I that the people of this world showered on them 
so few, and fed them with so much of bitterness in 
their toil and tears. 

Paul and Kitty came to the home to live with John, 
and Kitty was housekeeper for both the brothers, — 
bright, busy, refined, joyous Kitty. Whether Protest- 
ant parson or Catholic priest approved or not, they did 
not keep those two loving hearts apart. Paul and Kitty 
were drawn toward each other by a very “natural se- 
lection,” and they were very happy. 

Paul at one time came very near losing her, because 
he was so impatient of the forms of her way of wor- 
ship, that he mocked them. Then she in turn pointed 
to the grotesque follies, also, in his way of worship, and 
to the bigotry of his creed, and they parted in anger. 
Six months she pined and pouted, and heard through 
the kindly gossip of other girls how miserable, too, he 
was. But he, silent and uncommunicative, thought 


28 o just plain folks. 

she was lost to him forever. He was dumb, pale, 
almost insane. He went to and came from his work, 
like a somnambulist ; seeing everything, sensing 
nothing. His conceit was quite crushed out of him. 
His pride at last gave way. The rock of his self-con- 
sciousness was rent at last. He went to her and begged 
for her forgiveness ; which she promptly granted, and 
never told him that if he had but stood out a little 
longer, she would have come to him to plead for his 
forgiveness. So she will have always what Yankees 
call “ the upper hand,” of him. In this peculiar case, 
that is the best that could have happened for both them. 

During the last days of Mother Hardhand’s illness 
she was a great sufferer. Thetty Vick took the hazard 
of sacrificing her position in the Railroad Company’s 
office. She wrote the superintendent that her duty to 
a sick and very dear friend made it impossible for her 
to come to the office until the end of Mrs. Hardhand’s 
life, which was certainly but a few days off at the 
farthest. Day and night she was beside the invalid, 
held her hand, smoothed the gray hair and warmed the 
dying heart with the comfort of her love, and the 
delicacy of her kind service. 

One evening, when John came in and bent over his 
mother to kiss her, she whispered with a consumptive’s 
hoarseness, ^‘My son, sit down by me.” He sat down 
in the only chair near her pillow, and held her thin 
bony hand in his. With her other hand, she motioned 
Thetty to come to her, and held her lips pressed hard 
together, so as to prevent another spasm of coughing. 
She took Thetty’s hand in hers and lifting it to her lips 
kissed it. Then, still holding Thetty’s hand, she 
pressed John’s hand to her lips and held it there while 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


28 1 

she closed her eyes as if in prayer. Then she brought 
their two hands together, and they involuntarily closed 
around each other, and thus clasped together, she 
lifted them to her lips again, and kissed them. She 
opened her lips and whispered, ‘‘Daughter of my 
heart ; son of my heart,’'' and she looked upward, 
“may God bless you.” He raised Thetty’s hand to 
his lips and reverently kissed it. She took his two 
cheeks between the palms of her hands and kissed him 
heartily as she should. Two days later Mrs. Hardhand 
died. . Yesterday, nearly a year after Mother Hard- 
hand went out of the old homestead forever, Thetty 
Vick went through the ceremony which law and custom 
requires, and became Mr^ Hardhand. 

By virtue of certain representations of authority, and 
of certain legal forms and papers duly made and pre- 
sented, John Hardhand, a few days prior to his mar- 
riage, was thrown into a very terrifying dilemma. His 
employer, Mr. Opolee, has for some time past, possibly 
dating from John’s financial gains in Sconset land, 
though we cannot be exact about that, been very re- 
spectful toward and very considerate of his hired hand, 
the erstwhile farmer, John. 

As John was about to hasten off from his work to 
catch the car on the electric road which runs up to 
Sconset now, Mr. Opolee has frequently said to him : 
“Jump into the carriage, John, and ride up with me, 
and you can so save yourself the time and trouble of 
walking down after dinner to get a book from the 
library.” One day, Mr. Opolee sent for John to come 
to his office an hour or so before it was time to 
quit his work, and on that occasion the head of the 
Opolee Mill Company appeared nervous and uneasy. 


282 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


That same day, Maggie Vick had seen “ She,’’ walking 
through the street at Scarborough. 

Opolee had several times asked John to name a 
selling price for his property on “Lakeside Knob,” as 
the new-comers now called John’s location. John had 
pleasantly but decidedly declined to do so, and seemed 
to take a little satisfaction in his new relation to his 
employer, as he more and more clearly discovered 
Mr. Opolee’s anxious greed to possess Lakeside Knob. 
As John came into the office now, again Mr. Opolee 
led the conversation around to the same subject, and 
made a slightly better proposal than he had made at 
any time heretofore. Again John declined to consider 
it, and retorted by saying to Mr. Opolee, 

“Your offer is less than two-thirds the price I have 
been already offered by two other persons who desire 
the property.” 

“Very well, Hardhand, I have given you the very 
best offer I can make for the property, with its clouded 
title. ” 

“What do you mean? ” John anxiously inquired. 

To which Opolee paid no attention, but continued, 
“which may, and probably will end in the total loss 
of my interest, and the interest of the Mill Company, 
in that farm property.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” again asked John. 

“This will explain what I mean,” he answered, with 
aggravating coolness, as he carefully unfolded a 
searcher’s abstract of title from the record of deeds and 
pointed with his finger to the unsatisfied record of the 
Wayback deed. 

“By heavens,” said John, “if that is correct ” 

“It is correct,” interposed Opolee. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 283 

“ If that is correct/’ concluded John, “it is much to 
you, and everything to me.” 

“It is much to me,” replied Mr. Opolee, “yet be- 
cause I don't want to see you lose anything, I will take 
the risk of losing all I put into it, and will give you for 
your quit-claim deed , of it the sum I have just now 
mentioned to you.” 

“Let me consider it, for a day or two.?” asked 
John. 

“Very well, Hardhand, until this hour of Thursday. 
Day after to-morrow, in this place. Meet me here, 
with the papers, or my offer will close then, and for- 
ever. ” 

John stopped at Lawyer Fixem’s on his way to the 
car. Fixem gave him very little definite information on 
the features of greatest anxiety to him, but advised him 
to go on his way contentedly. “ Opolee will pay you 
at any time the price he has offered. Thursday night 
or next Fourth of July dr at any other time when you 
will consent to take it, don’t fret,” said the lawyer. 

But John did fret. He thought Fixem did not fully 
appreciate the appalling facts of the situation, or he 
must certainly be a fool, or must regard Mr. Opolee as 
one. 

When John dropped in at the Sconset Post-office on 
his way home next evening, he received a letter in an 
entirely unknown handwriting, and it bore this strange 
and peculiar message : 

“ Prepare the quit-claim deed to Opolee, leaving the consideration, 
— the price — blank. Meet him at the place and hour appointed. Do 
not execute the deed, nor write in the price, until the writer of this 
communication enters there, examines and approves the paper and 
gives consent. The writer will be accompanied by a relative of Mr. 


( 


284 


JUST PLAIN- FOLKS. 


Opolee. You will recognize the family likeness perfectly. You will 
also recognize me. I have done you good service before, and am 
only too happy in being able to render you this particular service 
now. For prudential reasons, all in your own interest, better not to 
know my name until I meet you there. Be of good cheer, and 
trust me. 

“ I find infinite satisfaction in presuming to sign myself, 

“Your Friend.” 

It was mailed from Scarborough. John thought 
of Boniface, of his New York lawyer, of Mr. North. 
Quite impossible that any one of them should write 
him from Scarborough. Beside, what could they do to 
remove the record of a deed that could, probably 
would, reduce him to dependent beggary again. He 
could think of no one in Scarborough to whom he 
might reasonably attribute this volunteered service. It 
was so emphatic in both command and promise that 
he would at least obey ; no harm could come of the 
caution required. 

He went to Fixem’s next morning, on his way to the 
factory. 'Quite to his surprise, Fixem had the blanks 
ready at hand and nearly filled in, when he called ; 
only lacking boundary descriptions, and some other 
information which John supplied from the papers he 
had brought for that purpose. John had reached the 
factory with the unsigned deed to Opolee in his 
pocket and was at his work before ten o’clock a.m. 

At the appointed hour that afternoon, — five o’clock, — 
washed, and tidily appareled, John entered Mr, 
Opolee’s office. He found there with Mr. Opolee, 
awaiting his coming, a new Scarborough lawyer, of 
quickly- won celebrity. This lawyer had recently made 
a famous hit and reputation, in resurrecting and 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


285 

establishing an ojd title to a valuable bit of land in the 
very center of Scarborough. His presence boded no 
good to John. The latter was sure of that. 

“Have you the papers with you .? asked Mr. Opolee 
promptly. - 

“Yes, sir,'’ John replied. 

“ Let me see them." 

John handed them to him. 

“Why have you not written in the price.?" 

“I want a little more consideration of the matter," 
John replied. 

“I shall give it no further," responded Opolee. 

“I think," suggested John, “that you should at 
least offer me what others have offered." 

“ I know what I am doing, and they do not. If you 
refuse this, my last offer, I shall immediately make the 
facts known to them, and to the public, which will 
destroy their ambitions, and, at the same time, make 
impossible any further negotiations for the property on 
my part. Do you accept my offer ? " 

“Will you not make it two thousand dollars more.?" 

“No ; decidedly no." 

“Will you give me another day to think it over.?" 

“No, no ; it can do no good, lam decided. If you 
will not accept my offer to help you, why then, accept 
your fate. " 

The office boy entered and announced, “A lady 
wishes to see you, Mr. Opolee." 

“Ask her," he replied, “to be seated outside there 
for a moment. I am occupied with some important 
business and will be out presently." 

A rustle of the lady’s dress was distinctly heard out- 
side the door. Mr. Opolee arose and closed the door 


286 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 

gently ; continuing his conversation, meanwhile, he 
said to John, “I have offered you thus, in gratuity, 
several thousand dollars which you could not and 
cannot otherwise get. If you refuse, I shall be exon- 
erated from all blame of having made you again, a 
penniless, dependent, hired man.’' 

The door swung quickly open. A graceful, elegantly 
dressed woman entered, accompanied by a lad of 
fifteen years, and closed the door behind her. Opolee 
looked, — turned deathly pale, — crushed and rumpled 
the unsigned deed, as with spasmodic nervousness his 
hand closed on the paper. He gasped, — and with 
startling, hissing breath he uttered the one word, 
“ Mary ! ” John, too, was startled, and looked alarmed. 
It was ‘ ‘ She. ” 

With her hand gently and affectionately resting on 
the lad’s shoulder, she pushed him before her until the 
two stood immediately near to, and confronting IMr. 
Opolee. They paused there, silently. The full truth 
of the situation flashed across John's mind. Turning 
her face then full upon John, she said to him, in that 
sad melodious voice he twice before had heard, Do 
you recognize me 1 ” 

“ I do,” he answered, and he held out his hand to 
her and said earnestly : wish to thank you for your 

kindness to me, once, when I needed a friend.” 

She whispered half audibly, “Wait, and you shall 
see if I am capable of a good deed.” Then turning to 
Opolee, who sat looking into the boyish sweet face of 
the lad, a face in duplicate of his own — in his innocent 
days, — she said, “ Morris Opolee, look on your son. If 
you had been blest or cursed with other children than 
this one, for their sake and the sake of your wedded 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 287 

wife, I would have spared you this. Understand -me, 
for their sake. Not now. Let me see that deed.” 
He shook perceptibly and hesitated. She continued, — 
“ How dare you attempt to rob this man or threaten to 
plunge him back into penury and dependence on 
you ? ” 

“Mary, I assure you, if I never did a good deed 
before, this that I offer to do for him, is one. I offer 
to him thousands of dollars in gratuity, for a title that 
is not worth the wasted ink and paper with which it is 
written. I do it just in merciful kindness.” 

“ Liar ! Villain still ! Is it impossible for you to be 
true to one honorable sentiment, one noble, unselfish 
purpose.? Here, look at //xfs,” and she drew from the 
bosom of her dress the memoranda made and signed 
by Uriah Fixem, detailing all the facts relating to the 
satisfaction and cancellation of the Wayback mortgage 
deed. Those papers which Lawyer Fixem supposed 
destroyed years ago, and which he had doubtless quite 
forgotten. She held them in her hand before him, 
while Opolee glanced them over. Then she handed 
them to John. 

“ Hand me that deed,” said she to Opolee. He 
handed it to her, and arose from his seat to do so. 
She immediately drew the chair under her, sat down at 
his desk and picked up his pen. He stood back of her 
chair. 

“ Can I see those papers .? ” said the famous lawyer 
to John. John had read them over carefully. 

“Yes, sir, but you must return them to me, not to 
your client. ” 

“ I will, sir,” and he took them. 

Laying down the pen with which she had commenced 


288 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


to write in the figures in the deed, she turned to 
Opolee, and in a tone of command not to be ques- 
tioned, said to him, “Where are those receipts from 
the Wayback heirs, and that quit-claim deed from 
Fixem ? ” 

“ In my safe/’ 

“ Get them, and give them to me.” 

He did so promptly, as if he were covered with a 
revolver. She took them, and handed them to John. 
The famous lawyer gave him back the Fixem mem- 
oranda, shrugged his shoulders, a la Franfals, arose, 
and was about to go. 

“ Stay,” said she ; “Ae,” pointing to Opolee, “and 
we, shall need you.” The lawyer sat down again. 
Then picking up the pen, and turning to John, she said : 
“John Hardhand, name your price for Lakeside Knob, 
which this man has tried to rob from you. Include in 
it also the balance of the Hardhand farm, that the 
corporation of which this man is president plundered 
from your good, worthy father and mother.” She 
hesitated: “A hundred thousand dollars; a hundred 
and fifty ; two hundred ” 

“Mary ! ” ejaculated Opolee. 

“ Be silent ! ” and she stamped her foot ; “ two hun- 
dred and fifty ? more ? ” And she prepared to write in 
the sum, waiting only for John to ?iame it. 

“ Hear me,” spoke John, “ I cannot return evil and 
injustice because I have suffered both, without harm 
to myself. I, nor you, my good friend, must not take 
our advantage to wrong him, because^he has sought 
advantage to wrong you, and to wrong myself. Lake- 
side Knob is not for sale to Mr. Opolee.” 

She laid down the pen, and rising, said, “Morris 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


289 

Opolee, look on an honorable man, and bow your 
head with shame in his presence. Willie,” turning to 
the lad, “ look ! ” The boy gazed at John with a con- 
fused sense of the situation, slightly bowed, and the 
two walked out. 

19 


290 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

LESSONS LEARNED FROM JUST PLAIN FOLKS. LORD JOHN 
AWAKENING. OLD BAT PROVES HIS FRIENDSHIP. 

“You had better begin the work at noon to-morrow, 
I think. The sewer-pipe will arrive in a few days and 
it will be best and safest to get it into the ground and 
out of reach as soon as possible, for it is easily broken.” 
This was John Hardhand’s reply to IMr. Bartholomew 
McAuliffe’s inquiry.’ 

“ When does ye want me to come to wurruck, Mishter 
Haardhand .? ” 

The new Lake Shore road at the foot of Knob Hill, 
ran along beside the wrinkling ripples of the great Mill 
reservoir. Ran along exactly parallel with and about 
four hundred feet away from old Sconset road at the 
top of the hill, where the old Hardhand homestead 
still stood. Stood iiow^ in its bright new dress of paint 
and added modern decorations. Some century plants, 
a palm in a great red-painted tub, an iron dog, painted 
to imitate bronze, and one of the “new fads,” a tripod 
and gypsy kettle, ornamented the lawn about the house, 
and had entirely displaced the homely flowers of the 
olden time. 

John had surveyed and laid out two cross roads from 
the main road down to the Lakeside drive ; thus plot- 
ting what might be called in a city, two blocks of land, 
containing the usual number of building lots. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


291 


He proposed to add to the desirability of these lots 
by some work of his own ; or rather, by the work of 
hired hands, whom he would pay out of the funds re- 
maining from the sale of lots already referred to. 

He was about to lay a main sewer of earthen pipe 
along Sconset road, and branch sewers running from it 
down each of the two new streets, to finally empty into 
the Lake. Old Bat was to direct the work, and execute 
John’s plans. Jimmy McGurk’s team, with Terrence 
to drive, would haul the dirt and pipes about, and Jim- 
my’s cousin, the greenhorn, Roger Ryan, as a laborer 
also would assist old Bat. 

Mr. McAuliffe had gone to John’s home, immediately 
after the latter’s arrival from the factory, to talk over 
details of the proposed work. 

“ I will be down your way, after supper,” John re- 
marked, “for I want to see Jimmy about the team ; 
and perhaps I will drop in at your house on my way 
back. Sit down. Bat, and have supper with us .? ” 

“ Do, father,” said Kitty, from the pantry door. 

“ And then we will walk down together,” John con- 
tinued. 

“No, thank the two o’ yees,but me old ooman, Hiven 
bless and purchect er, — she’d not ate a bite nor drink a 
sop entil her auld mon kem to sit down wid her. I'm 
obliged to ye, but I’ll be goin’ — an I'll see ye afther ; 
eh, John .? ” 

Roger Ryan, was standing outside by the gate when 
John reached their place, and saluted him with almost 
royal deference. 

“Good evenin’, yer honor. ’Tis a foine day, son 
May de blessin’ o’ God be wid ye ; sure, Jimmy do 
be tellin’ me as ye wants an able mon to worruk in 


292 


JUST PLAIN POLKS. 


de ditches ; an uv it plaze ye, I’d be verry glad o’ the 
chance. I knows well how to do that same ; ditchin 
an’ beddin petatees I did be doin’ shure all me life 
since 1 wor a brat of a b’y, no begger nor thot, ” holding 
his hand out about four feet above the ground. 

“ Have you a spade, Roger ? ” 

“ Hev I a shpade .? Ax me hev I an appetite ; shure 
I was borrun wid a shpade in me mouth.” 

“ Ah, ha ! ha ! ha ! ” laughed John, “ very well, you 
come up to the house to-morrow at noon. Bring up 
the spade, and the appetite for work, and bring along 
the mouth for entertainment. Mr. McAuliffe will direct 
you how best to use the three.” 

“I’m verry grateful to ye, Meshter Hardhand.” 

“Grateful for what, my good man } ” 

“ Fer givin’ me the job shure, an fy not ; me cousins 
are very good to me, bless dhem, an’ I’m quite welcome ; 
bit I don’t like to be givin’ dhem de sarvice o’ me ap- 
petite an payin’ dhem wid me mouth, while de rusht do 
be thickenin’ on me shpade ; an I find it as haard uveree 
bit, to git a job in Americy as it is at home.” 

“Very well, Roger; but I don’t see that I have any 
claim upon your gratitude. You will do some work for 
me that I do not desire to do myself. I will pay you 
for doing it, less than / would accept for doing the work, 
or otherwise I should do it myself. And if there is a 
balance of gratitude due between us and unpaid, I am 
certain lyj/oz/r debtor.” 

They walked into the house and from thence with 
Jimmy over to old Bat’s. It happened that some Irish 
friends of the McAuliffes were there before them, and 
their pleasant chatter and laughter was not an unin- 
viting element of the entertainment. Mrs. McMahon, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


293 


Mrs. Donnelly and her daughter, and a recently arrived 
relative, a young woman, from the same county that gave 
to the world old Bat, were there. Their chatter quieted 
down as John and his party entered. The men 
gathered about John and discussed the proposed im- 
provements at Knob Hill. John, with none of that 
unsocial reserve which commonly characterizes such 
associations, for self-consciousness was no part of his 
nature, counseled with these men, and joined heartily in 
that free fellowship which wins the hearts of any who 
are worth making our friends. The men in their cor- 
ner and the women in theirs, were soon as busy with 
their tongues, and as free from restraint as if John 
himself had been born in County Arlone, instead of 
Sconset. 

John had a writing-pad, and with a pencil, was 
making an estimate of the total cost of the proposed 
improvements. He was also approximating an esti- 
mate of the addition to the selling price of the lots that 
this improvement would give to them. 

So much the sewering would cost. So much more, 
because of the sewers would each lot bring. So many 
lots would be benefited, and the gross sum amounted 
to more than five times the cost of the sewers. He 
heard Mrs. McMahon in subdued voice, saying to old 
Bat’s wife : — 

“Shure, Mishter Haardhand is a fine pooblic-shper- 
rited mon ; an’ McMahon was sayin’ to me thi^h day 
week, whin he fursht heard of the pipes an the ditchin’, 
that ef there were more o’ the likes o’ him, to be givin 
worruk to the poor, the times would be aisy, be gorra, 
yis, aisy. Faith he’s de fine mon, so he is, Mrs. Mc- 
Auliffe.” 


294 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


“An he ishn’t shtuck up at all, but as kind and 
friendly wid wan as anodther, ” put in Mrs. Donnelly. 

And the young woman greenhorn whispered to Mrs. 
McAuliffe, “An’ sure he’s not a Laerd dhin, be that 
token. An’ if he isn’t a Laerd, how do he be givin the 
worruk .? ” 

“Well, ril tell ye,” repfied Mrs. McAuliffe, “.He’s 
ownin’ dhe besht bit o’ property in Schkonset, what they 
calls Knob Hill. It’s got in a few years to be vurry 
vallyble. ” 

“Be dhe ditchin’ an’ culteevatin’ and sich, I sup- 
pose,” said the new-comer from over the sea. 

“No,” replied Mrs. McAuliffe, “no, be the — be the 
— be the — bother me head ; I can’t tell yo be what it 
got vallyble ; eh. Bat, me good mon, come hither a 
bit.” Bat arose from among the group of men and 
walked over to her. “ Whisht ! ” said she, and he bent 
down his head, as she whispered in a loud buzzing 
tone. “ Say, Bat, what do be makin’ the Knobs Hill so 
vallyble an’ Mr. Haardhand so rich.? ” 

“ Begorry, I’ll tell ye, Honora, ’tis the power to take 
the mutton.” 

“But ye tould me often. Bat, that same was what 
druve yer cousen Mary to dhe bad, an* druv Fe away 
from dhe home, an’ fed worrukin’ min on schkant 
petaties while gintlemen Laerds folleed dhe hounds an’ 
fattened wid game, and shure John is a worrukin' mon 
in dh€ mills, an’ as good as an angil from Hivin. ” 

“ It is not his goodness, Honora, nor kindness nor 
worruk has med him rich, but has kept him poor an’ 
sufferin’. ’Tis the power to take the mutton from thim 
as uses Knob Hill as has med him rich.” 

“Papa dear,” whispered Mrs. Paul Hardhand, who 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


29s 


had just' come in to return a borrowed pickling-kettle 
to the mother, “Papa, dear, don’t whisper so loudly. 
Though Mr. Hardhand is busy with his pencil, he 
hasn’t laid aside his ears, and he will hear you.’" 

John had his back toward them and was bent over 
the writing-pad at the table. But Kitty had noticed that 
the pencil Wcis idle, his head did not move, and that he 
seemed to be listening. When old Bat went back to 
the group of men at the table, John reached for his 
hand and gave it a most earnest shake and pressure, 
which made the old man feel almost guilty of having 
done him some undeserved injury. But before the 
evening was gone John found an opportunity to assure 
him that he had done him a great kindness. 

Jimmy and Roger arose and departed. Old Bat and 
John sat there for a long time together in earnest con- 
versation by themselves. John said in a quiet, con- 
fidential tone to him, “Mr. McAuliffe, do you not be- 
lieve I am your friend.?” 

“Shure I do, Meshter Plaardhand, fynot.? I counts 
yer thot, an’ none bether. ” 

“Will you tell me why you left your home on that 
beautiful island over the sea, and came to this land of 
strangers and strange ways .? ” 

“Faith, it’s a long shtory ; it ’ud bother ye widout 
annee profit, John.” 

“ Don’t be too sure of that. Bat. I want to know ; 
it will help me to solve a troublesome problem ; I am 
sure of it.” 

‘‘I am yer frind, John Haardhand ; I wouldn’t do ye 
harrum, nor hurt yer body, nor yer harrut, fer de price 
o’ me life. So, if I do bring out a misery-makin’ coat, 
that look like it were yours, don’t put it on, fer it never 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


296 

‘11 fit ye. An’ ef ye puts it on, ye’ll never wear it fer 
long- ; it’s agin yer natur to. 

“ In the countyshire I kem from dhere do be ownin’ 
all the land about, several Laerds, two o’ dhem lives 
dhere in der castles, an’ more o’ them do live in Eng- 
land over the channel. Dhe landed eshtates be divided 
up among dhe tinantry in little paircels, an’ de rints be 
so high an’ de tithes so heavy that little is left afther 
dhem fer de worrukin’ poor. Me faather hed nine 
childer, five b’ys and four gerruls, an’ I was de eldest 
wan o’ dhem all. Two or three milch goats an’ a pig 
we kept, an’ a shcore o’ sheep. We did rake leaves, 
an’ gather weeds from the sayshore to mingnure the 
meddys fer hay, and the pastures to feed the sheep. 
Uveree wan uv uz worruked as haard as we cud, an’ 
it was petatees we ate, an’ not enough o’ dim, an’ de 
pork o’ de wan pig, fer if we had two, dhe odther 
musht go to markit. Not tin times in all me life ’till I 
kem to Americy, did I tashte mutton. 

“Uveree year from nine to fifteen fine fat sheep or 
lambs wint to Liverpool or to London markets fer 
money to pay the rint. Pay rint to thim as did, — as 
did, — nothin' but own the land an’ eat the mutton and 
follee the hounds. An’ I seen, that it werrn’t dhe title 
o’ Laerdthat gave dhem dhe power to take our mutton, 
but the title to land. And to the tinintry, to-day, to- 
morry and foriver, only to worruk, was the lot o’ de 
rinters, an’ go hungry, and give the mutton to dhim as 
has the power to take it. 

“I couldn’t do worse, an’ I might do bether, — fer de 
place wouldn’t fatten dhe mutton and feed us all, — so I 
married Honora an’ kem over to Americy. ” 


JUS T PLAIN FOLKS. 297 

“Well, my friend, I cannot see that you are much 
better off here. ” 

“Faith, I am dhin,'' the old man replied, “though I 
haven’t egschaped the laerds ; there be crumbs as fall 
off dheir tables in dhis braad land they’re too lazy or 
careless to pick up ; and wan o’ dhem is dhe bit o’ land 
alongside the railroad tracks. 

“I bothered meself an’ Flonora, wid sthrugglin’ an’ 
try in’ fer mony a year, a tryin’ to buy, an’ so be a laerd 
meself ; bit I seen as little laerds like Jimmy McGurk 
an’ sich wus no better than no laerds at all, for dhe 
power to take the mutton from dhim was always wid de 
bigger laerds, an’ dhey gettin’ bigger an’ fewer. So I 
picked up the crumbs be the railroad track, where the 
laerds do forget to ashk fer the mutton I raishe wid me 
worruk, an’ so I think meself well to do, an’ am very 
contint.” 

“What do you think of my position. Bat.?” asked 
John. “Am not I a lord in my little way.? As much 
a lord and as bad a lord as the lords of Arlone .? Don’t 
hesitate to tell me what you think, my friend. It is the 
way to prove your friendship for me.” 

. But the eccentric old fellow did hesitate in very 
evident embarrassment. He looked inquiringly at 
John’s face for a moment and then asked : 

“ An’ ye won’t be mod, nor think me less a frind, 
John .? ” 

“Only the more respect you for telling me what you 
believe to be true.” 

• “Very well, dhin, John, ye are a sorry mixture o’ 
laerd an’ worrukin’ mon. As a worrukin’ mon, ye 
are a blessin’ to dhe worruld. As a frind an’ 
neighbor, ye are one o’ God’s nobilitee. As the 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


298 

laerdo’ Knob Hill an’ the acres down Sconset road, ye 
may uf ye will, an’ ye probably will, take the mutton 
o’ dhim as worruks an’ raises it. Fer, as I’ve mony a 
time said, an’ know, it isn’t the nod o’ the Queen, 
nor the power of a name that makes a laerd, but dhe 
power to take the mutton, and dhe power to take dhe 
mutton is dhe curse o’ dhe worruld. It has druv to 
crime dhim as, seein’ dhe aise o’ dhe rich, has, be 
wrongdoin’ an* fightin’, shtruggled fer that same 
power. Et has ground to poverty, need, misery, 
prostitution, an’ all manner o’ evil ways fer to live, 
dhim as hasn’t dhe- power to take dhe mutton nor dhe 
place to raise it. 

“Aye, a laerd, me frind, ye are, — though ye don’t 
know it nor mane it, an’ will be mod fer me tellin’ ye ; 
ye are a curse to dhe worruld o’ worrukin’ min an’ 
women an’ childer. Fergive me fer tellin’ ye.” 

John Hardhand took the old man’s hand in his own 
and shook it heartily as he said to him, “Mr. 
McAuliffe, I thank you. You have done me the 
greatest kindness.’’ 

After they had talked over the details of their plans 
for work next day on the sewers, John took his depart- 
ure. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


299 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN WORKING-MEN, PRODUCER AND 
PRODUCT. RIGHTS AND WRONGS. SOME EVIL CONSE- 

^ QUENCES. THE END. 

Since Paul’s marriage to Kitty McAuliffe they had 
been living at the Hardhand homestead. By their 
more intimate association after Thetty came into the 
homestead as John’s wife, the two women had become 
even more than formerly attached to each other, and 
the two families were very happy together. Despite 
this fact, Paul, being less social than the others, and pos- 
sessed of the quite worthy desire to have a distinct home 
of his own, proposed to buy a lot from John and 
build upon it, near the old home. He had selected the 
site he desired and John was hesitating, with no little 
embarrassment, as to the price he should name for it. 

On the evening next following John’s talk with old 
Bat, he came into the house with a legal document 
which he signed, Thetty signed, and then the notary 
signed and acknowledged. John with the document 
in his hand, turning toward Kitty, who was much mys- 
lilied by the unintelligible proceeding, said, ‘‘Kitty, 
if you will give me a dollar in the presence of these 
friends, I will give you this paper.” 

With a sly wink Thett}^ signified to Kitty her wish 
that the latter should promptly comply with John’s pro- 


300 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


position. Kitty stepped to the bureau, opened a little 
tin box, and returning to the party, handed John a 
bright new silver dollar ; and John gave her a deed, 
executed to Mrs. Kate Hardhand. A deed of the lot Paul 
had selected. 

Kitty laughed hysterically. Then she ran to John, 
impulsively grasped his burly shoulders and tried to 
shake him as she gave him a hearty kiss and exclaimed, 
“John Hardhand, you horrid creature. Why did you 
do that .? ” 

“ To pay a debt of gratitude that I owe to your father. 
He never would have permitted me to reward him, and 
so I pay it to you. He will not be angry with me 
because of a little kindness done to his Katy, my 
brother’s wife.” 

After supper, John, Paul and the girls, as they called 
their wives, sat at the table a long time discussing plans 
for a homelike house to be built on Paul's lot. Paufs 
lot ; ” insisted Katy, “ all that is mine is Paul’s and all 
that is Paul’s is mine, aren’t we one ? ” 

While the girls were, as they styled it, ‘ ‘ doing up the 
dishes,” John detailed to Paul the whole history of his 
conversation with old Bat ; the old man’s philosophy 
of the man who takes the mutton. And the two 
brothers dropped into a conversation and discussion that 
continued for a half-hour. It was a peculiar conversa- 
tion, for in it was expressed the convictions of two in- 
telligent workingmen. However absurd their reason- 
ing may appear to the reader, I think, now that the 
reader knows both these men so well, he will concede 
the honest sincerity of their convictions, even if he 
does not accept their conclusions. And as there are a 
very great many John and Paul Hardhands in this and 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


301 


other countries, for the well-being of ourselves and 
themselves, for the public safety, perhaps we had better 
listen to the logic of their reasoning, kindly and log- 
ically refute it, or if we cannot refute it, join with them 
in asking and even insisting that some one else refute 
it, before it ruins us — if it be ruinous. 

John began the discussion with a peculiarly modest 
and humiliated demeanor. He brought his hand down 
on Paul’s knee with a gentle slap and began in a con- 
fidential tone, as if telling his brother something of 
which he was ashamed. 

“Do you remember, Paul, my once telling you how 
on a certain occasion Mr. Opolee gave me much flat- 
tering praise for insisting that it was the duty of those 
having eyes to use them — to see P” 

“ I remember it, yes.’’ 

“And that though my suggestion was directly per- 
sonal to him, yet he called it philosophy ; and com- 
mended me to the work of writing a book on the sub- 
ject ; and that I call it ‘A Philosophy of Progress,’ or 
‘Eyes for the Blind,’ or perhaps ‘Progress by Sight.’ 
Remember that too .? ” 

“ I do, and I never for a moment have doubted that 
his moral blindness and his selfishness were both his 
incurable afflictions. ” 

“Paul,” — and John spoke so low that he almost 
whispered it, — “Paul, I was a blind leader of the 
blind. I was myself only a little less blind than he. 
He also saw cruelty and injustice abounding, but con- 
sidered it the result of a natural and irrevocable law ; 
a necessity of survival, j I saw injustice, deplored it, 
desired to find a cure for it, and believed I had faithfully 
looked. And yet all unnoticed by me, the solution of 


302 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


the problem lay right under my feet ; while I was 
charging the evil to various indefinite causes, all 
utterly inadequate, and gazing away off into the mists, 
awaiting, and seeking a coming Christ in the clouds, 
as a way and a means of establishing justice. If 
charity begins at home, does justice begin in the 
clouds.? Mr. McAuliffe has come much nearer seeing 
the truth, for Mr. McAuliffe observes with sincere re- 
gret that peculiarly harmful power which exists and 
passes from one to another with the present form 
of title to land. He seems,” continued John, ‘Ho see 
very clearly, that the title carries with it, not any 
power of production from the land, — for the land itself 
and the labor on it alone possess that power, — but that 
the one harmful power accompanying the title, and 
which gives to the present form of title its chief value, 
is its power to take the productions from the men, 
women, and little children, any or all who in the using 
of land, by their labor do produce good things. Owner- 
ship of that ‘ power to take the mutton ’ is ownership 
of men ; cloaked, innocently perhaps, under a title to 
land. A title to land, if it be shorn of its power to own 
and command men, — shorn of its power to appropriate 
their productions without rendering a just equivalent, 
is innocent, harmless, and, if it guarantees security of 
use and possession, is certainly beneficent. But its 
specidative selling value will be greatly decreased, its 
idle holding investment value will be gone, with the 
establishing of a just form of title. Nobody will specu- 
late in men when men are free. 

“If I own the power to take the productions of an- 
other man, I own all that is to me materially valuable in 
the man. Indeed that is the only valuable property in 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


303 


a slave ; the power to take his productions. If I own 
the power to use land and take the productions of my 
own exertion from it, if in such ownership there is 
guaranteed security of property in my productions^ and 
security of undisturbed use of land, such a land title is 
truly desirable and beneficent. 

“ A title to the right to use land is so radically differ- 
ent from a title to the right to neglect to use, to deny 
others the privilege of using, or to exact part or all of 
their product as the price of permission to use land, 
that the two forms of title are antipodal. Separated 
by all the difference between right and wrong, justice 
and injustice. I doubt if Mr. McAuliffe sees that truth 
in all its fullness,” continued John, “though he sees 
the evil power in titles, and its evil use.” 

“ What brought that peculiar logic into your reason- 
ing.?” inquired Paul. “I am certain that you cannot 
separate the right to use land from the right to keep 
others off from it. If others can come onto my land, 
having on it equal right with myself, what is to prevent 
them from taking my improvements and my produc- 
tions upon it; the results of my labor.? I think, John, 
we need greater security of right and title in what we 
produce, rather than less security in landownership.” 

“But, Paul, how can you produce anything over 
which to discuss property rights, without possessing 
any natural opportunity to produce.? And what is 
land but the first, greatest, absolutely essential oppor- 
tunity ? The right to take the productions of other 
men ; to take products, which you are anxious to se- 
cure as a property right to their producer, is the precise 
and only baleful feature of our present land titles ; and 
gives to an idle non-user, a simple owner, power to do 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


304 

exactly what you seem to think would be the conse- 
quence of a title of right to use. 

“I was discussing with Thetty this morning the pe- 
culiarity of my sale of that lot to Johnson’s foreman, 
Philip Fuller; and of the eight hundred and fifty dollars 
in money I received for it. He borrowed all but three 
hundred dollars of the money with which he paid me 
and executed a mortgage on the lot to the money-lender. 
I am in possession of that money. What part, if any 
part of the value which that money represents, did I 
produce .? Not a cent’s worth of its value, except that 
I have been one of the units in the great common host 
of men whose increasing needs for its use have increased 
its desirability and value. I no more, and precisely 
as much as each other individual has done, as Philip 
himself has done. But Philip, in order to acquire that 
space, has parted ownership in himself, to the extent 
of eight hundred and fifty dollars. And as the money- 
lender has, through Philip, paid me in advance, so now 
Philip must go on giving to that man the use of his 
life’s labor, until that sum is returned to the lender, 
with interest, et cetera. My profitable property was not 
after all in the land, it was in my ownership of power to 
command and to sell Philip’s labor for eight hundred 
dollars. I have secured eight hundred and fifty dollars 
which I never produced, but which Philip has yet got 
to produce by his labor, and to deliver to the man who 
has furnished the money for me.” 

“That only goes to show how very unjust capital is 
toward labor,” Paul remarked. 

“ How, at least in this case, can you say that, 
Paul } The money which Jimmy Brown loaned to 
Philip for that purpose was the honest earnings of his, 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


305 


Brown’s, labor of producing clock-springs at Bristol. 
Clock springs, — goods, — good things which the world 
wants and is the better for having. His money, to give 
or lend, or in any way use or spend. But what did 1 
produce and give to the world in exchange for the eight 
hundred dollars } My work in the factory, do you say ? 
Because of my hard and faithful toil in New York do 
you say I am entitled to reward from Philip Fuller.? 
What claim have I, in reward for that work, upon 
Philip Fuller, or Jimmy Brown, or upon any one else 
than upon they who gave me work and took all the 
product of my work .? If they wronged me, does the 
fact give me the right to wrong Philip ? ” 

“I don’t see,” replied Paul, with the embarrassment 
of conscious defeat, “I don’t see that Philip is worse 
off for his purchase. He can sell again to-day for more 
than he paid, if he likes or is willing to do so.” 

“Which only proves,” responded John, “that the 
power to rob goes with the title, and that if I, indi- 
vidually, were to sell the entire area included in the 
terms of the deed as I sold the lot to Kitty, it would 
not correct the evil nor strengthen the cause of human- 
ity and justice at all. If it be possible — and I think it 
is possible — to take from title deeds that one peculiarly 
unjust power, the power to take labor’s products with- 
out giving just equivalent, and to leave in the title 
deed the power to use and the guarantee of peaceable 
possession in use, no just complaint could be raised. 
For is the only valuable service which land can 
yield to man ; and the power to deny use, or to dis- 
courage using land, by taking without reward the 
product of its use, is certainly harmful ; as it has tlie 
effect of diminishing the amount of good things pro- 
20 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


306 

duced in the world, and of also putting the larger part 
of them into the possession and enjoyment of those 
who, not having produced them, have no moral right 
to them. Philip has the same evil power, and Kitty 
too has the same power, if she chooses to use it, 
which I possessed before I passed the title to them. 
The slave-holding father did not remove nor mitigate 
the curse of slavery by selling his slaves, nor by giving 
them to his children, nor yet by personally giving 
them freedom. It required the sanction of state law, 
sanction of the law of his own state, other states or 
other governments, — Canada, as instance, to assure 
them liberty. The error was deeper than the individ- 
ual. It was through legislative folly and crime writ- 
ten into constitutions and man-made laws. It required 
legislative correction. Legislative correction is like- 
wise required to remove this more substantial form of 
enslavement which is embodied and empowered in 
that one evil feature of land titles. Through legislative 
correction of that mistake is the only open door to 
that freedom to live and be happy, which has inspired 
the hearts and heroism of men through all the ages of 
civilization.” 

“Yet, at the bottom of the whole problem, John,” 
interrupted Paul, “there seems to me to rest the 
question of ‘property rights ’.” 

“Paul, my dear brother, you are so exceedingly 
anxious about and jealous of any interference with 
property rights, so keenly feel the necessity of finan- 
cial security and all that, that it seems quite novel to 
me. You hardly seem to observe the fact that you 
have no property in the earth at all. And even more 
strange to me seems your jealousy of possible fmaiv- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


307 

cial insecurity, when I consider that from all your 
faithful work, earnings, and savings, you have been 
able to save up only about five hundred dollars. Five 
hundred dollars ! Think of it ! Think of what you have 
produced with your busy hands guided by your inventive 
mind. Your first mechanical invention multiplied the 
products of a workman by twenty, and twelve of those 
machines were put into the factory where you work, 
and hav.e been continuously employed there ever since. 
The man who owns your opportunity, and to whom 
you go for permission to work and live, advanced 
you the money, seventy-five dollars, with which to 
pay for your patent when, but not until, you con- 
sented to give him one-half interest in it. Then he 
bought the other half from you for one hundred dol- 
lars, and has sold factory rights alone to the amount of 
thirty-four thousand dollars. When, later, you made 
valuable improvements upon the device, he claimed eind 
took them without rewarding you, because your time 
belonged to him, and he felt quite sure that you had 
done the thinking, while your time was his property, 
and you were his hand. All that interference with 
your property rights, all that helpless sufferance on 
your part, because you had no rights in the earth ; in 
the land of your country ; no place, nor opportunity, 
to work for yourself. Helplessly dependent upon your 
employer, what could you do but accept his terms.? 
You talk of property rights, and seem always to asso- 
ciate them in your mind with land titles ; titles which 
may be made right, but which, in their present terms, 
involve the most absolute property ivrongs.” 

‘‘You do not understand me, John,'’ replied Paul, 
'‘though I confess that I discover now what I have 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


308 

never heretofore so clearly seen, — that among the 
many beneficent features of land titles, is to be found 
also that one terribly unjust feature. But let me explain 
to you that what I mean by property rights^ is exactly 
expressed in the declaration, — ' to the producer, belongs 
the product. ’ To my mind, that claim appears just in 
principle and beneficent in results, and may be accepted 
as a rule of judgment. ” 

“Quite true;” interrupted John. “I admit the 
justice of that claim, and as we are agreed on that 
point, there remains to establish a just conclusion. 
Only the duty to find who and where the producer 
is. God, by the exercise of his intelligent creative 
power, has produced the natural earth ; into which He 
has embodied His attribute of beneficence ; a part of 
Himself. Hence, the natural earth is His. I, as an 
individual man, child' and creature of the Creator, 
with delegated power and delegated freedom of will, 
am enabled, and commanded, ‘in the sweat of my 
brow’ to. take of. the materials of the earth, separate 
them, combine them, and by my labor so modify and 
change them as to adapt them to meet the needs, 
and satisfy the desires of myself and my fellow-men. 
To ‘ create things needful.’ The good things I thus 
produce, you would insist are mine. I agree with you. 
They are, morally mine ; naturally mine ; justly mine; 
by virtue of the fact that I produced them. Mine by 
the same law of right that declares the earth, the natural 
earth ‘ is the Lords. ’ That is what I call ‘a property 
right,’ as truly as ‘ liberty,’ is a life right.” 

“If organized society, consisting of all individuals 
collectively, — community, if that word better expresses 
the thought, — if community, by the common needs of all 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


309 


its members, creates and develops any value separated 
and distinctive from the wealth which is produced by 
individual labor, then, by your own argument, Paul, 
such value must be, in right and equity, the property 
of community.” 

Paul was already convinced, but desired to dismount 
from his strident dogmatic form of discussion gracefully, 
and to adopt his brother’s safer line of reasoning. 

“I had my attention drawn to that equity, John,” 
Paul replied, “by that Scarborough Park scheme. 
Alanson Lord purchased the park site for seven thousand 
dollars. He did nothing on it, produced nothing from 
it, and having produced nothing, had no just property 
right in it other than to the return of the idle capital he 
had chosen to exchange for it ; capital which may have 
been the former productions of his personal industry, 
Pie also owned two entire blocks, fronting upon the 
park site; do you remember that fact, John.?” Paul 
asked, 

“Ido,” John replied, “I do, very distinctly ; and 
I also know that increase of population, wealth pro- 
duction, and the need for use of that park site, by the 
people of Scarborough, doubled its value during the 
first year after he acquired title to the site. The desire 
and the imminent need, for its use by the people of 
that vicinity, — the community, — so greatly increased 
its value, that Mr. Lord, by simply being in possession 
of the power to prevent its use and to hold the site in 
unimproved idleness, was enabled to exact and to take 
from the common-unity, the community, of Scarborough, 
twenty-one thousand dollars. Except that he was one 
unit among the common host of individuals that had 
produced a common value in which they had a com- 


310 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS, 


mon rio^ht, — I would like to have you tell me, if you can, 
what Mr. Lord had done to produce that park site value. 
Not having produced it, was the right in it proper to 
him ; his property right ? No ! community created it 
all ; — and it belonged to its creator, the community. 
And yet it is true that ‘ the law ’ obliged the com- 
munity to pay, through their municipal government, to 
one individual member of community, the purchase 
price of permission to use and enjoy the site which 
the community had created. A peculiar value, which 
no single individual ever has or ever can create. The 
community of Scarborough people paid twenty-one 
thousand dollars, for his consent to their use of their 
own property. 

‘ ‘ That ‘ statute law ’ is a serious error. And again ; 
when they had purchased the property from Mr. Lord, 
the first value-creating service of the park, was to in- 
crease the desirability of his property adjoining and 
about it. This new, beautiful and to be further beauti- 
fied park had the immediate effect of increasing the 
rental value and the selling price of Lord’s property 
fronting upon it, threefold. 

‘‘He sold, or rented, and put that increase also into 
his pocket with the twenty-one thousand dollars. 
I want to emphasize the fact that he was enabled to 
exact from the people the price or the value which they, 
not he, had given to the park site. Next, he was 
enabled to exact from purchasers and tenants, every 
dollar of increased value which the presence and enjoy- 
ment of the people’s park had added to his park-front- 
ing property. The entire community was taxed to pay 
him for the value which their park added to his land. 
The direct, valuable benefit of the park was allowed to 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


31 


be given freely to him, and he sells or leases those 
special privileges to his sole private gain. They paid 
and they continue to pay to him, not to the City govern- 
ment, a great price for the privilege of enjoying and 
using the air and beauty of the City Park. It is not 
difficult in fact nor logic to prove to whom a thing be- 
longs after we have discovered its producer, and learned 
whether the producer has been given an equivalent in 
exchange. My conviction of the true measure of 
property right, in its essence and application, would 
justly ‘ give unto Caesar the things that be Caesar’s, and 
unto God the things that be God’s.’ The people of 
this country have been so busy with their personal af- 
fairs, and are now so filled with the anxieties and needs 
of their private life, with the bitterness of their personal 
poverty and misery, as to be heedless, dangerously 
heedless, of public affairs, — government, society, and 
the legislation of statute and constitutional laws. We 
have an unworthy habit of accepting law as being gos- 
pel, without even questioning it. Lawmakers are more 
cognizant of this prevailing weakness of the masses 
than are other men. Hence, our lawmakers are the 
more careless in their work, or if careful, careful to 
work in the interest of personal advantage, of special 
privileges, and the result is ” 

There was a loud knock at the door, Katy opened it, 
and her father entered with Teddy McGurk immediately 
in his wake. 

“ Old Bat ” was pale. His wrinkled, browned hands 
trembled with agitation, as they hung down beside 
him. Without a word of greeting, he said hurriedly : 
“ B’ys, let yees coom wud me dhis minnut i-iown te 
Jimmy Hays’ house. He’s kilt his-seif wud a pishtol. ” 


312 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


“Yes,” put in Teddy, “ an’ Mrs. Hays is a dyin’ too 
wid de fright, an’ de young uns a screechin’ like 
mad. ” 

And away went the four, leaving Katy and Thetty 
to nervously worry and wonder what it all meant. 

“ What do you suppose made Jimmy Hays kill him- 
self.? ” Thetty asked. “ He seemed to be a steady, in- 
dustrious, quiet fellow, always at home when not at his 
work ; did he and Annie ever quarrel .? ” 

“Bless you, Thetty, no, not that I ever heard,” 
Kitty answered; “they seemed as devoted to each 
other as lovers. He was almost boastful of ‘his An- 
nie,’ as he called her, and she — why, she told me not 
two months ago how she had pawned the emerald 
ring that used to be her mother’s and slyly bought 
some flannels so as to surprise Jim with them when 
the winter came, for she said he didn’t have any 
all last winter, and pretended he didn’t care for 
them ; though she guessed he would wear these to 
please her. Poor fellow won’t need them now, will 
he.? Father was telling me the other day, ” continued 
Katy, “ that when Annie was so sick two months ago, 
Jimmy was kept home two or three days to care for 
her, and they put his name on what they call the 
‘fresh list’; the same as if he was a new beginner. 
If work is dull, and any one is to be laid off, they lay 
off those on the ‘ fresh list ’ first. I know father was 
afraid for Jim, and he said that what with lost time, 
medicine for Annie and doctor’s fees he was deeply in 
debt, and could not seem to catch up again. Perhaps 
they laid him off, and he got crazed with discourage- 
ment.” 

“Was he ever given to drink ? ” asked Thetty. 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


313 

“Not that I ever heard,’’ Katy replied, continuing: 
“What will poor Annie do ? I think that if it were my 
Paul, I would die too. It seems to me that I could not 
live.” 

“Annie will have to go to the mills herself if she 
lives through it and take Tommy there too — he is four- 
teen, I think — and leave eleven-year-old Mamie to 
take care of the kitchen and the three little ones ; it's a 
terrible condition to be left in, isn’t it, Katy .? ” 

John came rushing excitedly in for some needed 
things and said, “Come right down now, Thetty, 
quickly as you can. Annie is dying, just as Teddy 
feared — perhaps is dead now.” 

“How was it.? What was it.? Why did he do it .? ” 
asked Thetty, in her fright and confusion. 

And John replied with almost a sob, “ Another heart 
failure — not heart of flesh, but heart of hope ! They 
hav’n’t a loaf of bread in the house. He was laid off 
two weeks ago ; he blew his brains out ; tJiet'e would 
have been one more child to feed if Annie had lived until 
to-morrow. 

Old Mr. McAuliffe entered, in time to hear John’s 
closing sentence. “ Yes,” said he, “ yes, peace to her 
sowl. She’s sev’d from dhe deadly sin she kem near 
commiten two months ago. ’Tis a cryin’ shame that 
dhe childer God sinds into dhe worruld are not wel- 
come ; trown back. ' An’ it isn’t fer dhe lack o’ 
modther-lo\m ; even dhe bastes has dhat. But no 
modther kin long stand seein’ the sufferin’ o’ dhe haarts 
as has once beat wid dhe pulse o’ her own. No mod- 
ther kin see dhe pleading eyes o’ her helpless childer, 
an’ be helpless to help dhim, widthout wishin’ to take 
dhim wid her out o’ a worruld wher dhey are not wel- 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


314 

come an’ no chance or place in it fer dhim to live but 
be beggin’ fer it. May Hiven purchect dhe poor from 
dhe greed o’ min’, and from dhe timptation o’ evil-doin’. 
No father kin long endure lookin at dhe childer that 
look to him for help whin so be as he can’t help dhim. 
Poor Jimmy Hays wus crowded out ; dhey didn’t shtop 
wid takin’ dhe mutton but tuk dhe potatees an’ dhe 
wan pig as well.” 

“Ah,” cried Katy, with a tone of justifiable pride, 
“the Church, oiir Church, bitterly condemns shutting 
the doors against them, or sending back the little ones, 
when they come.” 

But to this boast, John replied, “ ’Tis a pity the 
Church doesn’t more earnestly work to remove, — I was 
about to say, the necessity , — I will say, the nearly irre- 
sistible temptation to this crime, by removing the cause 
for it. By helping to secure to every child which God 
sends into this life the opportunity which He has pre- 
pared to maintain its life, and which beneficent pro- 
vision He has made bountiful, and more than sufficient, 
before He sends each new image of Himself into the 
world.” 

Kind reader, patient follower with me through the 
common-life history of the plain people of our story, 
having seen and studied the cause of their impoverish- 
ment of body and soul, you have yourself discovered 
the remedy for such evil consequences of an evil cause. 
You know that the remedy is to remove the cause. 
You have discovered a way out of this hell of undeserved 
poverty ; a way of deliverance from this unwilling idle- 
ness of willing men amid a very plethora of God-given 
natural opportunities for honest thrift. Surely, you will 
demand equality of right to the use and enjoyment of 


JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 


31S 

God’s gifts, for all men. You will insist upon the 
sanctity of the universal right to equal justice. You will 
not silently permit the robbery of many for the enrich- 
ment of few, nor tolerate the pretense of atonement for 
such a crime, by gifts given in charity" (?) to the 
robbed, from the very plundered treasure of which they 
have been despoiled. You at least think, see and know 
whether the coin before you be God’s or Caesar’s. You 
will righteously judge it. 

For revenue with which to maintain the ‘‘ people’s 
government,” shall we not collect that one particular 
valuable product of all “ the people ” — the value of 
natural opportunities ? A value to which we all have 
equal right and which if used for the expenses of gov- 
ernment and returned to all equally in the benefits of 
government cannot be correctly called a tax — for it will 
be no burden and will not diminish wealth, as the pay- 
ment of a tax on the products of personal industry un- 
avoidably does. 

Shall we continue discouraging thrift, by taxing the 
good things that the industrious produce ? Or shall we 
leave the product untaxed, to use and enjoyment by 
its producer? 

Are you that person of rare content whom tolerated 
injustice seews to prosper? Ah, — my brother in very 
kinship of disappointment in our pursuit of happiness 
— we cannot catch the ever distant ignis fatuus we have 
foolishly followed and thought was happiness, which 
glimmers in the fogs lying over the miserable marshes 
of injustice. You have life-duties other than “looking 
out for yourself. ” Sometimes you are obliged to look 
in upon yourself. It is a lonely disappointing sight. 
You realign how much you need your neighbor, You 


3i6 


/[/ST PLAIN FOLKS. 


realize that you owe to your neighbor a sacred duty 
which you have left undone ; and that its neglect has 
harmed you and its consequences have raised the hand 
of your neighbor against you threateningly. 

To harm him, — is to harm thyself ; and so 
Remember : Thou art thy brother’s keeper.’* 


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thrill with an enthusiasm which marks a soul aflame with redemptive thought. 

— The Arena. 

The noble aim of all Mrs. Milne’s writings, combined with their great 
literary merit, should commend them to all. What Whittier was to the anti- 
slavery movement, Mrs. Milne is to this greater movement of to-day, which is 
based on “ equal rights for all, special ])rivilege to none ” — which means free- 
dom not alone for the black man, nor the white man, but for all mankind. 

— The Star, San Francisco. 


For sale by all booksellers. Sent postpaid upon receipt of the price. 

Arena Publishing Company, 

Copley Square, 



Boston, Mass. 


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